


Down the Rabbit Hole

by snowyfoxpaws



Series: Age of Magic [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Frottage, Half-Human, M/M, Magic, Oral Sex, Sex Magic, Succubi & Incubi, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-14 19:11:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 34,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1277686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowyfoxpaws/pseuds/snowyfoxpaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred seeks out a master to teach him the fine art of magic. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly do his research and ends up as the vowed apprentice of Arthur, a wizard who specializes in sex and seduction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Alfred Makes a Terrible Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Story originally posted on Hetalia Kink Meme [at Dreamwidth](http://hetalia-kink.dreamwidth.org/82590.html?thread=509212318#cmt509212318).

"Please,  _please_  take me on as your apprentice!" Alfred begged on his hands and knees. Arthur was almost certain that this was called groveling, but he'd never seen it in person before...  
  
The wizard's lips twitched, the thin, magical pipe held between them giving a short bob as a glittering veil of smoke was exhaled. For a moment Arthur wondered if this boy had chanced upon him and thought to himself,  _'Golly gee that sure is a mystical fellow. I should learn from him.'_  It was admirable, but Arthur's current garb painted him a common wizard and  _those_  certainly attracted apprentices but his sort typically didn't. "Do you know what you ask of me?" He prodded, slipping the pipe out of his mouth to lean forward and examine the boy.  
  
"Yes!" Alfred said, voice full of conviction. "I have never been more sure of anything else in my life. I brought offerings-- the villagers said--,"  
  
"So." A single word from his mouth silenced the boy. "You want to be my apprentice?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
Arthur stared at him critically. He certainly had the appearance for it. Sun-kissed skin, golden wafts of hair, blue eyes that could rival the sky, strong, dense muscle, and a height that would have women swooning. He imagined such a fellow had to be fairly well-endowed with the confidence he had in coming to him. Although why Alfred would need his help charming lovers, he was uncertain...  
  
No matter. If he were to have an apprentice writhing in his bed he'd rather it be a poetically beautiful one.  
  
"What's in it for me...?" Arthur asked, leaning back as he played coy. If they were to strike a deal it would be poor form to show his hand early.  
  
Alfred was confident now. He had researched this part. "I will protect and serve you until my training is complete!"  
  
Not unexpected... but not entirely unwelcome. The locals were not especially fond of Arthur and having a messenger to send in his place could alleviate some of the tension. Alfred was  _painfully_  normal, barely a spark of magic within him, but that made him a good conduit for guidance...  
  
"Very well." Arthur accepted, his pipe flickering away into smoke with a twist of his hand. He rose to his feet, the tree he'd turned into a chair shrinking away and regaining its normal shape. "Stand."  
  
The human stumbled to its feet, standing a good few inches taller than Arthur. He was silent and obedient, for which the wizard was grateful.  
  
"Lean forward." Arthur told him, and he did so, bowing slightly so that they were eye to eye. He gripped the lad's chin with one hand while running his tongue over a delicate finger on the opposite. He drew a symbol in saliva under Alfred's eye before leaning forward and pressing their lips together.  
  
Alfred was unprepared for that part, it seemed, as he began to make a muffled noise of protest, but it died as quickly as it began as the magic of arousal flowed into him. Tamed, the boy relaxed as Arthur took that moment to dominate his mouth, drawing another symbol onto the boy's cooperative and obedient tongue.  
  
Parting, he felt the magic between them break along with the string of saliva from their mouths. " _With this oath, you shall be my apprentice_." He said, words heavy with magic. " _I shall teach you my ways in exchange for your servitude_." Releasing Alfred's chin, Arthur stepped back to look over his new student.  
  
The human simply stood there, obedience disappearing along with the wisps of the completed spell. He was gaping at him rather unattractively.  
  
Although Arthur thought the little symbol of a painted rabbit looked cute where it sat beneath his sky blue eye, the saliva having turned into an elegant black ink that stained the skin. It would never fade as long as the bond of master and apprentice was maintained between them...  
  
"W- what did you do to me?" Alfred sputtered, showing a discourteous lack of knowledge.  
  
"I," Arthur began, standing tall and regal, "wizard of the night, succubus to the common man, sweet demon of desire, hereby pronounce you,  _Alfred Jones_ , my student." There was a look of shock on the human's face and Arthur couldn't help but find it wholly amusing as he added a coy, "Let's get along, shall we?"


	2. In Which Arthur Shows Off

Alfred wasn't convinced that Arthur was a real wizard.  
  
Oh, yes, he did magic--or  _magick_ , as Arthur liked to correct--but who had ever heard of a sex wizard? Nobody, that's who. That was the opposite of what Alfred wanted. He didn't want to seduce people-- he wanted to  _save_  them. And you couldn't save others with your penis, or at least he was pretty damned sure.  
  
Still, there was nothing he could do about it now. He knew, at the very least, the sacredness of the oath he had made, even if it had been with the wrong person. It was annoying that now he would have to wait an additional seven years before finding a  _real_  mentor, but if he had to bear with learning the carnal acts then what could he do...  
  
 _'If you keep thinking that way I may have to punish you, lad.'_  Arthur's voice warned, but Alfred could have sworn it was only in his head as he looked up at the very stony faced wizard that was guiding him through the woods.  
  
Of course it was just in his head. Although, yeah, that did sound like something he would say...  _'It's because I did say it.'_  Okay, he didn't need this. He already had to deal with the real man himself, he didn't need to be going insane too.  
  
"You're not going insane, boy." Arthur chirped, striking Alfred's back lightly with a slightly gaudy walking stick.  
  
Alfred blanched. "Ventriloquism?"  
  
"No,  _telepathy_."  
  
No fucking way. "You can read my thoughts?"  
  
"Aye."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To teach you how to clear your head so that others cannot read yours. Can you hear unintentional thoughts from me?" Arthur prodded, smiling coyly.  
  
Alfred gave it a go, but heard nothing. "... No."  
  
"Exactly." Arthur appeared pleased by this exchange as he gracefully ghosted over rocks and brush alongside Alfred's stumbling.  
  
"So you can read my thoughts? Like... all of my thoughts? How?"  
  
"If I so choose, yes. The vow has created a magickal bond between us."  
  
Alfred was really uncomfortable with that, he wasn't gonna lie. But _of course_ he was. And of course Arthur _knew_ he was. And this was really something he didn't want to think about because every time he tried to he started to feel his head hurt just a little-- not from mental exertion just from thinking about how he shouldn't think because then Arthur would hear him thinking about how he shouldn't think and--  
  
Another jab with the walking stick. "Calm down."  
  
That really didn't help, honestly. Counting to ten and taking a breath, Alfred tried to blank his mind a little. Knowing that the silence would draw him back into that endless loop of thought, he instead turned to Arthur for conversation. "So you said you're a succubus?"  
  
"Indeed." The wizard replied.  
  
"You know those are like... _lady_ sex demons right."  
  
Arthur actually stopped walking and looked at him.  
  
Feeling bold, Alfred continued. "Yeah, I read about it in a book. The ones who are women are the  _succubi_. You're a... an incubus? I think? So you might wanna change that next time you tell someone or they'll think you mean you've got tits and, well, you don't, so..." He trailed off, beginning to feel a little intimidated by the silence.  
  
He felt even worse when Arthur smirked. "I suppose," Alfred felt his eyes sting as a force of magic welled up over the wizard, forcing him to look away. It felt like someone had just cut into a hundred onions from the way his eyes burned. "I should... _explain_..." Arthur's voice warped and shifted. "a few..." He could feel it echoing all around him, "things."  
  
The magic retreated in all of a second and Alfred blinked, the burning gone. Looking back, he recoiled instinctively.  
  
Arthur was there but Arthur was not the same as he had been a moment ago. No, Arthur had big, leathery black wings, long blond hair, primly plucked eyebrows, and green eyes that looked like jewels...  
  
Oh and breasts, _like wow_ , and thighs that went on _forever_ and,  _holy fuck_ , so  _this_  was his magic?  
  
"This is one of the many things I can do." Arthur said as he-- _she?_ \--floated. There was a little whip-like tail, too, that flickered back and forth like a cat's.  
  
"You're not wearing any clothes!" Alfred exclaimed.  
  
Arthur frowned. "Yes, well, that is rather the point, isn't it? Besides," an elegant, feminine scoff, "I only look this way because this is what _you_ find attractive. I can't change my eye color or hair color... or facial structure all that much... but aside from the wings, horns," oh yeah there were horns now that he mentioned it, "and tail, this is apparently your ideal sexual partner." The wizard frowned. "Rather vanilla, isn't it?"  
  
"Put some clothes on!"  
  
"I don't know..." Arthur said, floating next to him. "It could be _fun_ to take advantage of this form. I  _am_  a proper succubus now, right? The name was bestowed upon me by others, after all..." That cat-like tail curled up between Alfred's legs and up his ass, squeezing. He swatted it away. "You're no fun." The wizard-turned-succubus pouted.  
  
Alfred continued walking to Arthur's house, the way obvious from the stone path they were on. "Fine. I admit... it was wrong of me to correct you."  
  
" _Good lad_..." The succubus purred, cuddling up to him. Alfred's face turned scarlet as bare breasts were shoved up against his cheek.   
  
Breaking away from Arthur, he picked up the pace. "How much farther to your cottage or whatever?" Alfred asked. He dare not spare a glance behind him for what he might see. He was pretty certain the last live naked woman he had seen was his mother... _at his birth_... and even then he didn't want to think about that right now.  
  
"So you're a virgin!" The female Arthur exclaimed.  
  
Alfred turned even redder. "Shut up, shut up,  _shut up_ , lalalala,  _I can't hear yo_ \--," He cut himself off as he spied a gate. There was a high stone wall, the entrance a white, wooden archway with ivy. The trees on this part of the path were so compressed together that he couldn't even fathom trying to go around such a wall.  
  
Having changed back to his normal form at some unknown point, Arthur put a hand on Alfred's shoulder and guided him through the archway in a way that Alfred could only describe as ceremonial. The ivy shifted above them, making him feel apprehensive.  
  
"Welcome," Arthur crooned softly into his ear, breath hot, "to your new home."


	3. In Which Alfred Keeps Secrets

Although Arthur was wholly confident in his abilities, he was also at a bit of a loss for what he should do with his new guest.  
  
... Guest was the wrong word. He  _knew_  what to do with guests and it often left them naked, sticky, and moaning.  _No_ , this was slightly different. This was an  _apprentice_  and those lingered for an inexplicably long time. He had agreed on the premise that Alfred would be of use to him, but now that he knew he had a virgin on his hands he wasn't certain what the right approach would be.  
  
If they were to be together for seven years, he wanted to make the boy's first time  _memorable_  after all.  
  
So he decided to sit back and study his new subject for a week. In that time, whatever Alfred's heart desired should become obvious to him.  
  
At first the human had seemed skittish and had eagerly accepted the idea of having his own room. ( _Of course_  Arthur would provide such a thing--it was  _much more_  satisfying to sneak into the bed of your target rather than to have him prone next to you. The latter was just too easy... and boring.)   
  
Arthur had conjured an extra room with magick, enchanting the trees and dirt into willful volunteers. It had taken around an hour but the work was easy and Arthur had relaxed with a cup of tea as the room formed itself. Alfred, on the other hand, had watched with rampant fascination. It seemed _non-sexual_ magicks really were his area of interest after all from the way he chattered along and asked questions and took notes...  
  
It was cute, in a way.  
  
Soon enough, however, they encountered some hitches in their amiable relationship. Alfred didn't like his cooking and Arthur didn't like his tongue. The boy had taken to calling him stupid nicknames out of irritation, like  _eyebrows_  and  _old man_. Arthur wasn't sure who Alfred thought he was dealing with, but the boy was making grave error after grave error.  
  
Eventually Arthur had had enough.  
  
Seven days after the boy had moved in, Arthur took glee in sneaking into his bed as planned. It had been easy enough--Alfred appeared to be an incredibly heavy sleeper--but even Arthur couldn't have predicted what would happen next.  
  
"Alfred..." The wizard murmured, his voice carrying like a charm into the boy's ear. It was a voice that could seduce one even in their dreams. " _Alfred_..."  
  
"Mm... nm...." Alfred grumbled, rolling over. Arthur pursued him, draping himself over the body of his sleeping apprentice.  
  
" _Alfred_..." Arthur tried again, attempting to rouse him with arousal as he drew his tongue over the shell of the boy's ear.  
  
And then, in a blur, he was flat on his back with the air knocked out of him and a hand pinning him down by his throat. The blankets had been flung off in the flurry and for the first time in over a thousand years, Arthur felt surprise... and fear.  
  
Alfred's eyes were glowing, the once sky blue an icy fire. _Magick_.  
  
Suddenly realizing that he needed air, Arthur scrabbled at the hand on his throat and after a moment it loosened. The wizard gasped, a croaked wheeze, head dizzy for a tick before he realized that Alfred was babbling at him.  
  
"-- _so sorry_. I don't know what happened. Are you alright? I'm really,  _really_  sorry, I jus--,"  
  
"What..." Arthur rasped. Bloody  _hell_  his throat hurt. "... was that?"  
  
Alfred swallowed, looking remorseful in the moonlight. "I... I sometimes lose control of myself and, um... yeah..."  
  
That was  _more_  than just  _losing control!_  Arthur stared at him, shell shocked. After a moment he managed to say, "I... see..."  
  
The human looked torn up, yet sheepish. "You're... alright?" He looked legitimately concern.  
  
"... Yes. It would take more than that to kill me." Arthur told him in all seriousness.  
  
Alfred looked incredibly relieved. " _Oh good_."

This person... this human...  
  
Just how  _dangerous_  was he?


	4. In Which Arthur Learns the Truth

Alfred had known that he would have to fess up eventually, he just hadn't expected it to be so  _soon_...  
  
After the incident with Arthur, he didn't really know how to approach the other man on the matter. It was as though the wizard were avoiding him and that bothered him for some reason. Shouldn't he have been doing the opposite? Hounding Alfred until he spilled all of his deepest, darkest secrets?  
  
Of course, there was always the possibility that Arthur was just reading his mind and that he already knew the entirety of it, but, if that was true, he showed no evidence of it. And it bothered Alfred.  _Immensely._  
  
Finally, after another one of Arthur's charcoal flavored dinner specials, Alfred worked up the nerve to confront him.  
  
"Look, about last week..."  
  
"Mm?" Arthur hummed, preoccupied with putting the leftovers away in a magical cooling unit, much to Alfred's distaste.  
  
"I, uh... You know, the whole... choking you in the dead of night thing...?" Real smooth, Alfred. He laughed nervously.  
  
"Yes... I do recall something of that sort." Arthur said casually, as though they were talking about the weather.   
  
Alfred was convinced that this was an act, so he carried on. "I... I've killed people."  
  
There, he said it.  
  
Arthur stood straight, putting aside his task to give Alfred his full attention. The funny top hat he wore crooked on his head caught the light from the window and the veil attached to it glimmered.   
  
When the wizard said nothing, Alfred felt forced to explain. "I... have had these powers since I was a baby. I don't know why... but sometimes I just snap and..." This was actually beginning to upset him now that he was saying it aloud. His throat felt inexplicably tight. "First it was, you know... the family cat when it scratched me when I was three..." He fisted his hands to try and stop them from shaking. "A neighbor boy when I was seven..."  
  
Oh god, he couldn't do this. It was all he could do to not start bawling right then and there.  
  
"I- it's always been like this-- I left my home. I couldn't stay there... My parents tried to protect me b- but I was too dangerous and-- and I just want to control it. I want to never hurt anyone every again. I don't care if I have to be an apprentice for  _one hundred years_  as long as it means never--  _never_ \--,"  
  
He hadn't realized he had clutched his eyes closed, tears cascading ruthlessly down his face, until something warm and sweet-smelling embraced him.  
  
Opening his eyes, he met the sight of Arthur's lavender colored jacket.  
  
At the silence, Arthur spoke, "You may think me evil for the magick," there was that  _click_ , a definite 'k' that Arthur always seemed to make a point of pronouncing, "that I practice, but I am not heartless." His voice was soft-- painfully so. Alfred felt lulled and for a moment he wondered if it was a spell but...  
  
If it was, did it really matter?  
  
Arthur was leaning his head against Alfred's, arms around him, palms pressed firmly but carefully into his back, and the apprentice could smell the rustic scent of tea leaves and something else... something  _sweet_  and  _divine_...  
  
He relaxed.  
  
"I will help you." That wonderfully accented voice said. Alfred knew he was charmed, but for the moment he let himself be.  
  
Just for the moment he was going to enjoy this comforting presence.  
  
He was going to enjoy the only person who had ever been able to make his tears completely stop.


	5. In Which Alfred Finds Comfort

Alfred was a bit more complex than Arthur had first anticipated.  
  
He had thought he was gaining, at worst, an errand boy. Now, he found that the boy had  _much more_  up his sleeve than that. He'd even looked faintly reluctant when Arthur had asked him to go to town and fetch food.   
  
It was... _troublesome_ , to say the least.  
  
Yet, with the boy out of the house, he could sit down and do some proper research on the matter. Namely, why a human would secretly harbor such an immense amount of power. Certainly there were some people more attuned to learning magick, but simply having that much  _raw force_  within you was unheard of. Magick was something you drew from  _other_  sources, using yourself as a conduit-- it didn't just manifest itself from within.  
  
And here was someone who had, quite honestly, turned all of that on its head.  
  
The only thing he could think of was that the boy must have had some kind of ancestry with... something _truly_ supernatural. However it was nearly impossible to know just  _what_  or  _when_  or  _why_.  
  
When an angel falls to sleep with a human, it is nearly never documented.  
  
So he was left with a dead end and a million questions. And it was mildly frustrating.  
  
Alfred arrived back all too soon, looking haggard. Curious and a touch concerned, Arthur watched as he unloaded the pack of perishables. "So... they didn't have eggs..." He said, looking at Arthur.  
  
"They rarely ever do these days." Arthur said easily, looking through the items that had been bought. He could tell from the selection that Alfred wasn't very adept at knowing which items were the healthiest or freshest... so some kind of dryadic lineage was out. Elven too...  
  
"And, uh... the butcher said they were fresh out of meat..."  
  
"Mm hm..." Arthur hummed. The butcher was someone who rarely sold his wares to people outside of the town. If Alfred couldn't detect the lies he had told then he certainly wasn't one of the more manipulative breeds. Not that Arthur would have suspected that in the first place-- Alfred had shown himself to be nothing if not blunderingly honest.  
  
Yes, he was _honest_... and hard working. Unlike most, he meant well and he only wanted the best for people. Arthur blanched at the idea that maybe he  _was_  part angel, but that would have manifested itself in  _healing_ , not destruction.  
  
And he certainly wasn't part demon with the valor he tried to uphold.  
  
What a nuisance this was.  
  
It took him a moment to realize that Alfred was simply standing there, staring at him. He furrowed his brow but his lips curled into a coy smile, "See something you like?" He purred,  
  
That snapped Alfred out of his reverie, "Oh--  _sorry_... No-- well, I mean you look fine, but no, I was just... thinking."  
  
Arthur didn't feel like reading his thoughts. It was too... easy. "Oh? About?"  
  
Alfred hesitated, taking a steeling breath. "Just... you're really not hurt from before? When I..." He trailed off.  
  
This again? "No, I'm quite alright. See?" He yanked down the fabric of his collar to reveal a creamy swath of pale skin. Alfred looked less aroused and more confused, which was a tad disappointing. "And yet this bothers you?"  
  
The human shrugged. "Well, I... What I did  _should_  have crushed your windpipe."  
  
Oh, now that was an image. Arthur winced slightly. "Yes, well it didn't."  
  
"And that's because of your magic?"  
  
" _Magick_. And yes."  
  
Alfred rolled his eyes at the correction, but he looked like he was trying to get to some overarching point, "So... You can't die?"  
  
This wasn't really a question he felt comfortable answering. "That is not entirely accurate."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"There  _are_  some things that  _can_  kill me, obviously."  
  
"Like?" Alfred asked, and Arthur had to wonder how someone could ask something like that without realizing the implications.  
  
"You are four hundred years too young to be asking that." He settled on, partially bluffing.   
  
Yet Alfred seemed to accept this answer, nodding. "I thought it was something like that." He exhaled a relieved breath of air, looking a bit cheered up.  
  
It was irksome. "The fact that I can die brings you happiness?" Arthur asked, feeling only minorly scandalized.  
  
"What--  _No_ , I just... I'm just  _happy_ , I guess." Alfred paused, quickly adding, "Happy that  _I_  can't kill you. Er, by accident, that is..."  
  
Arthur snorted, "If I died by your hands, I'd be terribly disappointed in myself. My grave will read,  _'Here lies Arthur Kirkland. Murdered by stupidity.'_ "  
  
The fact that that little insult brought such a strangely joyous look to Alfred's face made Arthur quietly withdraw his sharp tongue. He took a small moment to admire the unique curl of lips and the sharp white of flawless teeth as soft chuckles fell and reverberated in the quiet, musty air of the cottage.  
  
Feeling his throat go painfully dry, Arthur said, "I think now would be a good time to begin your training."


	6. In Which Arthur Gives a Lesson

" _Concentrate_ , Alfred..." Arthur said, sitting in front of the apprentice with one delicate leg draped over the other. He was floating, but if you could sit on air then that was  _technically_  what Arthur was doing. The magician gave an irritated groan and said, "Stop thinking about what my  _arse_  is touching and start focusing on the elements, you unruly child..."  
  
"I'm  _trying_!" Alfred responded, just as irritated. Nag, nag,  _nag_ \-- sometimes the guy could be real cute but now was not one of those times. He was the opposite of that. Whatever that was.  
  
"Well then  _try harder_."  
  
Alfred threw his hands up into the air. "You're not helping!" He exclaimed.  
  
"If you think my idle chatter is  _that_  distracting, imagine that you have a man with a knife at your throat and then perhaps you'll be more inspired by my teachings."  
  
He had a point. But-- "I'm just a beginner. Shut up and then maybe I can give you an answer, sheesh."  
  
Arthur seemed to choose that moment to listen, giving Alfred a rare and blissful silence. Focusing, he tried to be aware of the elements around him. The ground that stabilized him, the air that gave him life, the water that fell from the sky and dripped down his face and arms.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"I really don't feel like... like anything..." Alfred complained.  
  
Luckily Arthur seemed to take him seriously and hummed in thought, looking up at the rain bearing clouds. "Your magick is pathetically weak right now." He said, and Alfred wasn't sure if that was a statement or an insult. He settled on both. "There isn't much we can do until we know what you are best at drawing from. That's how you should start as a beginner, you see. You must work your way up."  
  
"So that I can wield the elements?" Alfred asked, finally curious about what exactly they were supposed to be accomplishing.  
  
"No, so that you may harness them. You'll pull energies from them in order to utilize them for yourself. Wielding them is... a specialization but it's really just pulling that power into its raw form. No, I want you to do something with a bit more finesse, at least."  
  
Alfred was almost impressed. "Wow, you really do know a lot. Why do you focus on like...  _sex_  stuff? Seems kind of perverted."  
  
The look Arthur was giving him was unreadable, but if he had to venture a guess he would have said it was... like a wall. Just a nothing response, but a nothing so  _blatant_  it felt like a front.  
  
Yeah, Arthur was wearing a mask.  
  
Alfred realized belatedly that perhaps he had stumbled onto a topic that was a tad touchy. Arthur still hadn't said a word... "Er, you know, not that that's a bad thing. I know lots of people who like sex. My parents for one-- made me that way, you know." Oh god, he was talking about his parents having sex--  _Awkward_.  
  
Arthur's eyes lit up. "Tell me about your parents." He said.  
  
"Ew--  _Oh my god_ , I can't believe you really want to hear something like that. You really are perv--,"  
  
"No, just tell me  _about_  them as people, Alfred." Arthur said tensely, those impressive brows drawn in tight frustration.  
  
" _Ohh_ , well... Ma's always been really sweet, um... but I haven't seen her in a long time. Dad I sort of remember, but it's fuzzy..."  
  
"...Oh?"  
  
Alfred shuffled his feet slightly, feeling awkward. "The village I lived in kind of chased me out, well... yeah, chased me out, I guess. Ma helped me escape, um... They were kind of upset by the trouble I caused and, well, you kind of know what I did and all already. My dad was never really around. He would come and go and then I think he died or at least that's what my ma said. I feel like I should be sad but I didn't really know him at all..."  
  
When he stopped talking he became acutely aware of the rain falling and pattering on leaves as it was the only noise he could hear when he looked up at Arthur. Those green eyes seemed like they were glowing in the overcast light, but the expression was dark and withdrawn.  
  
"So, yeah, there isn't really much to say on them. Why? Do you think it'll help my training somehow?"  
  
Arthur looked away, voice sage-like as he replied with a quiet, "I don't know."  
  
Not really wanting to linger on the subject of his estranged parents anymore, Alfred tried to muster a laugh, "Well, if we're all done here can we go inside? I'm soaked!"  
  
"Mm..." Arthur agreed, moving to stand on solid ground as he began for the cottage. Alfred followed after him, not sure what to make of the silence between them. Once they were inside, Arthur handed him a towel and told him, "Take a bath before you catch cold." With those words he disappeared further into his home and Alfred could hear the library door shut with a faint click.  
  
"What's gotten into him?" Alfred sighed as he began for the bath. The quiet solitude of the tub only seemed to heighten the feeling of thoughtful silence as rain fell heavily on the building-- an endless,  _pitter patter_  assault that somehow relaxed him and made him feel somber all at once.  
  
He fell into a restless sleep that night, plagued by memories.


	7. In Which Alfred Uses Magick

The storm continued into the next day, making the outside world seem damp and gloomy as pale black clouds hovered over the forest with their bounty. The cottage was typically sun-lit the majority of the time and warmed with candles during the night, but with the darkness outside it seemed this day required a bit more aid.  
  
All around the old, wooden walls were glowing orbs of firelight that flickered and danced atop candles that never melted.  
  
It seemed this interested Alfred, for he stared at them all throughout a breakfast of oatmeal and berries. "So, uh... is your element fire or something?"  
  
Arthur finished prepping his cup of tea and gave Alfred a sideways glance. "No. Why would you think that?"  
  
"Well you lit those candles with your hands..." The apprentice said, as though it were obvious.  
  
"Ah. No, fire is not my element-- it is not  _any_  human's element, in fact. Fire is too raw and untamed although we can certainly harness it once we understand how, but it's not something that some  _beginner_  can draw from, which is quite lucky or I assure you that the majority of those with talent would burn themselves to a crisp before realizing it..."  
  
Alfred hummed, thoughtful. "So what  _is_  your element?"  
  
"Water." Arthur replied easily as he twirled a spoon in his cup and sat down.  
  
Like a distracted child, the subject was abruptly changed again, "Don't you  _ever_  eat anything? I only ever see you drink tea..."  
  
Ah, so the lad had finally noticed. Arthur's lips curled into a knowing smile as he gave the boy with his best bedroom eyes, "I feed on the sexual arousal of others..." He purred, taking an elegant sip from his cup.  
  
" _Bullshit._."  
  
Arthur felt a laugh bubble up in his throat at the sudden language. "Why do you say that, my dear?"  
  
Alfred leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, "You're not actually a succubus-- _or_ an incubus. You're just pretending. You already told me as much and I'm not stupid. I won't just forget something like that."  
  
The wizard put down his cup, setting the plate it rested on on the table with a soft  _clink_. "You are right. I am _not quite_ a succubus or an incubus." He leveled his eyes on the human, feeling his powers churn inside of him restlessly. "However you know  _not_  the first thing about me if you are so willing to disregard what is right in front of you."  
  
That seemed to give the boy pause and he sat up straighter in his chair as his face mellowed into one of intense thought. "So... you really feed on that stuff...?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Those perfect eyebrows furrowed. "How does that work?"  
  
"Well, if it's a male partner I make sure to get him good and  _hard_  before--,"  
  
"Okay, okay, okay-- I got it. No more questions. Geez..."  
  
Arthur pouted, but then his lips curled into something more wicked. "I can  _show you_ , if you'd like--,"  
  
"Nah, I'm good."  
  
The response was so curt and immediate that Arthur frowned. This child took him so lightly...  
  
It was mildly infuriating.  
  
Rising up from his chair, Arthur walked over to his student with long, deliberate steps, throwing a leg over Alfred's lap in order to straddle him in his seat. Like the performer he was, he curled up against him with his slim body, his expression shifting into one of desperate innocence as he looked up at the human with large, green eyes. "You don't...  _like_  me?" He asked, his voice tight with a deliberate amount of hurt.  
  
Alfred, who had gone completely rigid in his seat, fell for it. "Wha-- N- no, I didn't say tha--,"  
  
Letting a hand trail up the the boy's neck, Arthur pressed his cheek to Alfred's collarbone as hot breaths were exhaled heatedly against that tan neck. The candlelight only further set the mood. " _Alfred_..." He crooned, his voice heavy with charm. "Why do I displease you so...?"  
  
"Y- you don't, I just--,"  
  
"Would you not spend a night with me? My bed is so cold... I'm so  _lonely_  on my own..."  
  
"I guess, maybe, just one ni--," Arthur heard the sound of magick snapping and he jerked his head up in surprise as his charm was forceably broken. "Get. The fuck.  _Off of me_..." Said a low voice, and before Arthur could act he was shoved into the table violently, head reeling back with a fierce crack as the furniture tumbled over with his weight.  
  
Magick... He'd been hit with magick... He could feel it pulsating in his body, wild and uncontrolled, and his head spun from where he'd hit it.  
  
Alfred was standing over him, eyes glowing ice blue, and Arthur suddenly became aware of the sharp contrast between those piercing orbs and the firelight that was dancing and undulating with fury behind him.  
  
"Fire...?" Arthur murmured, before his vision turned to pitch.


	8. In Which Arthur Sleeps Dreamlessly

When Alfred became aware of his surroundings again, he was standing over a limp and motionless Arthur. The memory of what had just happened came rushing back to him in one swift go and he sucked in a startled breath as he stumbled back and nearly tripped over his own feet.  
  
" _Oh no_..." He exhaled, breathing ragged as he looked at the prone form of the wizard. In one sudden motion he was kneeling over him, checking for a heartbeat-- breathing--  _anything_.  
  
He was alive.  _He was alive_  
  
Alfred was shaking, a dizzying sense of vertigo overwhelming his senses. He tried to calm himself, taking deep, controlled breaths. After a minute or so he pushed back his anxiety as best he could--palms sweating, breathing erratic, body shaking--and picked the man up from the floor as gently as he could manage.  
  
He nearly faltered at just how  _light_  the wizard was.  
  
Swallowing nothing, he realized he hadn't the foggiest where Arthur's bedroom was. He knew the general direction he traveled to go to his room at night, but he'd never actually known which door led to the bed he slept in. Shifting Arthur in his arms, he decided he'd just have to go and find it.  
  
It was frighteningly easy considering that the bundle in his arms weighed nearly nothing.  
  
After trying a handful of doors--some locked, some not but mysterious all the more for their contents--Alfred finally found a room with a bed and he figured this must have been it. He lowered the man gently onto the mattress, but when he stepped back to look at him his breath caught in his throat.  
  
... Arthur looked  _absolutely terrible_.  
  
Not in an  _aesthetic_  sense but as far as _health_ was concerned... There were dark, bruise-like marks under his eyes, which looked like those that formed from sleep deprivation... His skin no longer had that vibrant glow but instead carried a strangely chalky pallor. It had never occurred to Alfred that the wizard might touch up his appearance with magic, but now all evidence pointed to that. He frowned as a knot of concern twisted itself around in his gut and he pulled the man's sleeve up his arm slightly, not surprised to see those lithe and gentle arms were just a tad bonier.  
  
It wasn't as though he looked unattractive... He just looked  _sick_. Alfred felt a strange stab of guilt and betrayal. It wasn't as though Arthur  _had_  to trust him with these things; he just hated the idea that the man had been suffering somehow and hiding it from him...  
  
He cared for Arthur. Perhaps in a platonic way, but when you didn't have any friends even someone as prickly and standoffish as the wizard was a welcome change...  
  
And yet he hadn't known his friend was hurting... He hadn't been  _allowed_  to know...  
  
Alfred wet his lips with his tongue, trying to steady his racing thoughts. His eyes traveled around the room as he attempted to calm himself, but they stuck to small, plush rabbit sitting on a desk table, surrounded by heavy books and parchment.  
  
As if drawn like a moth to flame, he approached the tiny bundle of fabric and let his finger brush that old button of an eye before it lightly ran down one, worn out ear. It looked positively ancient, but well maintained, as if the owner couldn't bear to part with it.  
  
"What's your story, Arthur...?" He felt himself say in the silence of the darkened room. "What are you hiding from me?"


	9. In Which Alfred Offers His Services

When Arthur awoke, it felt rather like everything suddenly spun into existence, reality whooshing up to meet him as he opened his eyes. He felt strangely out of place and off balance, uncertain of what to make of where he was.  
  
Sitting up in his bed, he noted he was still in his day clothing, although his hat had gone missing somewhere... and his head was pounding with a relentless headache.  
  
His body felt like it was encompassed in a light hum and he narrowed his eyes at a shaking hand. A moment of concentration and the spell on him snapped like a twig, tiny sparks flung from his body as the foreign magick disintegrated.  
  
Watching as his hand returned to a healthy, lively color, fingers shifting from merely thin to lithe and elegant, he sighed in relief. He could feel the charm settling around him like a security blanket and he relaxed.  
  
"Why do you do that?" A voice asked, and Arthur startled as he realized Alfred was standing there in the darkened room, barely illuminated by a candle.  
  
"I beg your pardon?" Arthur asked, tilting his head away and crossing his arms.  
  
Alfred was staring at him. "Why do you hide your appearance like that?"  
  
"I haven't any notion of what you speak."  
  
That response seemed to agitate the boy further and he stepped forward, grabbing Arthur's wrist. Distracted by the way the flame on the candle danced in rage, the wizard didn't think to pull away. "I know you don't trust me, but I just want to know why you hide behind those spells. What's the point? I'm the only one here." He glanced up into those radiant blue eyes, a soft glow emanating off of them in the darkness. "I would only want to help you."  
  
Arthur made an annoyed sound low in his throat, but those eyes suggested he ere on the side of caution. "I'm hungry..." He said simply.  
  
"That's it? Then I'll make you some food. I told you it wasn't healthy for you to not ea--,"  
  
"I don't eat food."  
  
Alfred had released his wrist now, but the look he was giving him was drawn and calculating. "You... said you feed on arousal."  
  
Arthur felt put out by all of this and too tired to fight it, so instead he simply gave in to the questioning. "Yes."  
  
"So... you just need to have sex with someone? What do you normally do when this happens? Can't you just go to the village and--,"  
  
"If I step foot within that place I likely won't leave alive." Arthur looked at him, feeling somber. "You don't live somewhere for this long without breeding enemies from the trouble you cause. Men don't like their women being charmed off. Women don't like their men being seduced. Townsfolk guard their children like I might just take to snatching up one of  _those_ , too..."   
  
His apprentice was simply staring at him, absorbing every word.  
  
Arthur felt indescribably tired, but he decided to blame it on their earlier scuffle. "Once in a while a passing traveler might be entranced by me, but it's been so long... Perhaps a little over a year?" It really had been that long, hadn't it? No wonder he felt so weak... He dragged a hand through his hair. "So as you can see, this is of no concern to someone like you."  
  
"You're wrong."  
  
Arthur looked up at him, surprised. He hated being wrong, so the accusation grated on him. "Pardon?"  
  
Those blue eyes bore into him. "You're wrong. It  _is_  my concern."  
  
He was beginning to feel angry. "I don't need you to swoop in with your bloody  _hero complex_. I've been fine for a thousand years and I'll be fine for a thousand more. Don't look down on me--,"  
  
" _I'm not_." Alfred interrupted, pushing back at Arthur's shields. The wizard winced at the magickal interference. "I just want to help. I promised that I would protect you."  
  
"How can  _you_  help  _me_?" Arthur growled.  
  
That seemed to give the boy reason to pause and the wizard would have almost felt victorious if it wasn't so predictably pathetic. That was, until he replied with, "Feed on me."  
  
A ripple of surprise ran through Arthur's body. "W- what...?" He hadn't been charming Alfred. He'd done nothing to the boy since he had woken and yet here he was talking about sacrificing himself on Arthur's behalf... The wizard glowered with suspicion. "I do  _not_  take kindly to such jokes..."  
  
"It's not a joke." Alfred said, and, despite searching his eyes, Arthur couldn't find falsity in those words. "You're..." The boy hesitated. "You're suffering because you can't eat, right? But if you feed on me then I lose nothing from it. It would be cruel to not help you..."  
  
Arthur leveled him with a firm look. "You'd lose your virginity." He said.  
  
"Yeah and what good has that done me? Don't you know, virgins are the ones that get sacrificed to demons and stuff? You'd be doing me a favor..."  
  
Arthur stared at him for a long moment before, "How do you know that  _I'm_  not a demon?"  
  
Alfred seemed surprised by the question, but his momentary uncertainty was replaced with a confident grin. "Then I suppose that kind of fate isn't so bad after all."  
  
For the first time in several hundred years, Arthur blushed.


	10. In Which Arthur Has a Meal

Things returned to normal after that, much to Alfred's surprise, but there was still that unsaid agreement that sometime soon he would be giving his body over to the wizard. It felt a little odd to be in that position, but he didn't regret the decision at all. No, that was not an emotion he felt regarding it--perhaps anxiety from not knowing when it would happen and concern for Arthur, but not regret.  
  
Still as a day passed and then another with no sign of the shorter man coming onto him, Alfred got impatient.  
  
"Hey." He said over dinner on the third night, feeling especially restless. Despite not eating himself, Arthur always attended meals with him while drinking that strange tea. "So when are we going to, y'know...  _do it_." He asked, finally putting forth the nerve to.  
  
Arthur put his cup down. "So you were serious?" He said softly.  
  
"Yeah,  _duh_. Couldn't you have just prodded my mind and found that out for yourself? It's the only thing I've thought about for  _three days_  now." He was certain Arthur would take that as bait to poke fun at him, but the wizard was silent and Alfred felt strange as he watched that expressionless mask slip onto his features. He hated that expression... "Look if you're  _scared_  just say so. I mean, I thought you were all powerful and mighty but I guess--,"  
  
"Oh belt it." The wizard snapped. Ah, anger. That was definitely an improvement. "I'm not scared, I was just giving you room to back out if you had changed your mind." Arthur took an indignant sip of tea.  
  
Feeling vaguely scandalized, Alfred glared. "What kind of person do you think I am to back down on something like that?"  
  
"A virgin." Arthur said dryly.  
  
The apprentice groaned. "I told you, that doesn't matter to me! It's not like I was savin' myself for someone-- I've just never been close to anyone."  
  
"Is that so?" Arthur said, but they both knew this was the truth. Still, the wizard's expression seemed to ease and Alfred had to wonder if the guy had been that tense the entire time... "I suppose now is as good a time as any." The tea cup was put back down.  
  
"A-- wha--?"  
  
"You're done eating?"  
  
"Well, yeah..."  
  
"Then we'll start out small." Arthur said, approaching the younger man where he sat at the dining table. "If you're prepared to feed me, realize it will be frequent..."  
  
"I kind of figured  _that_..." Although if Arthur could live for a year without eating then just how frequent did it need to be? Still, he wouldn't question the wizard on it as it was apparent that he was only getting by on some kind of magic.  
  
Arthur instructed he pull the chair out slightly, so Alfred did with no small amount of curiosity.  
  
His questions were answered when Arthur got onto his knees.  
  
"Since we're doing this to feed me, it'd be most efficient if I didn't charm you." The wizard looked up at him from where he had settled between Alfred's legs, deft fingers expertly getting his pants around his ankles and leaving him in only underwear. "Do you think you can manage my appearance as it is?"  
  
Alfred had a suspicion that Arthur was referring to the former succubus appearance--his _so-called_ ideal woman--that he had conjured up prior, but at the question the apprentice looked down at the wizard as if to think it over for himself.  
  
Tufts of soft, unruly, honey-wheat hair, those large eyes that glimmered in the dim lighting of the room, that soft face and slightly feminine build...  
  
Eyebrows or no, charm or not... Alfred was pretty sure he could manage. "I- It should be fine..." He stammered.  
  
If Arthur noticed his blushing he didn't say anything about it, however he  _did_  make an amused noise at Alfred's erection as he coaxed it free of the undergarment. "You're rather hard, so I'll believe you."  
  
"H- hey I've never done something like this before-- I can't help--,"  
  
"Sh, sh, sh, love..." The wizard crooned in that strange but alluring accent, and Alfred winced slightly as those soft fingers were suddenly stroking and handling his dick. "Relax. I'll take care of you."  
  
Before he could say anything that perfect, wet mouth was encompassing him and felt himself become indescribably hard in that moment. He had never felt  _anything_  like this before-- oh yeah, sure, he'd jerked himself off because literally  _everyone_  does that but a hot mouth felt a hell of a lot different on a penis than his hand as he camped out alone in the cold.  
  
" _Ahh_ \-- ngh..." Alfred gripped the arm of the chair, his entire body heating up. He couldn't help but look at the figure sucking him off, those dark lashes brushing those supple cheeks as Arthur kept his eyes closed with a look of admirable concentration. His build was so much smaller than Alfred's that, if he squinted and tried to imagine they'd never met, he could  _almost_  fathom that this was a girl--  
  
That thought seemed more distracting than arousing, however, so Alfred just concentrated on the man kneeling in front of him and the pleasurable spasms in his lower body.  
  
"Fuck-- Arthur that's just--  _nnh_ \--," He babbled, resisting the urge to jerk his hips forward. It was so overwhelming, this sense of tongue and lips and the soft contours of his mouth and occasionally a little bit of teeth. "Shit-- I'm gonna-- gonna come--," He gasped, feeling himself reach the edge almost embarrassingly fast. Arthur made no attempt to move and in moments he was releasing into that seemingly eager mouth, little sucks against his length causing him to squirm and groan as his master swallowed every drop.  
  
When his cock was released he felt limp, boneless, and more than a little out of breath.  
  
"Oh god, that was  _amazing_. I don't know what the hell you did, but fuck..." He gasped, but then he spared a look down at the other man and he felt his body grow even warmer.  
  
Arthur was sitting there with the most blissful expression on his face, lips wet and red from the work they had done, face flushed with arousal, eyes dark and half-lidded, and hair clinging to his skin in slightly damp tendrils. If Alfred hadn't known better, he would have thought Arthur was the one getting off here...  
  
Suddenly those picturesque features were looking up at him and he felt his throat go dry as Arthur murmured a gentle, "Thank you for the meal."  
  
  
  
... Alfred was beginning to suspect that he really wouldn't mind this arrangement at all.


	11. In Which Alfred Shares His Bed

Arthur felt better than he had in a long time.  
  
It was one thing to charm a lover... but it was another thing entirely to have one that was willing and it felt undeniably  _amazing_  to have access to that raw, unmitigated power. Moreover, Alfred was a virgin and, although he had slept with those before, this time it seemed... different somehow.  
  
This magick was unlike that of his past encounters.  
  
To truly charm someone, they needed to be receptive in some capacity to advances. Once charmed, they acted nearly as engaged as someone who freely slept around. Oh, they certainly  _felt_  the effects more  _strongly_ , but that was the extent of it really.  
  
Alfred, on the other hand, was fully engaged and brimming with emotions. Fear, surprise, anxiety, lust, arousal, and compassion...  
  
It was much like going from drinking water to a sweet, alcohol beverage. The latter was simply intoxicating in its fragile complexity.  
  
Arthur felt himself ache for more. It had overwhelmed him and he wanted to feel that surge of power again. He felt healthier and more lively and without his having to feed continuously on his own magick he felt far more  _relaxed_.  
  
Oh gods above, he had slept gloriously that night.  
  
So after two days or so he decided the boy had had enough time to wrap his head around the situation and had informed him, in the most gentlemanly of manners, that he would be joining him in his bed that night.  
  
Poor thing spat out all his food in surprise.  
  
It was worth it.  
  
In the end Alfred had agreed, fairly nervous, but he appeared to genuinely be a person who would not back down from an agreement and Arthur felt that that was commendable.  
  
Then again, this boy who channeled fire had already proven himself a curious person.  
  
  
  
As promised, Arthur creaked open the door to Alfred's bedroom as the moon sat high in the sky. He shut it with a soft click and moved to the bedside, easily slipping under the covers and curling up against Alfred's back in a way that could only be called  _affectionate_.  
  
"I'm not asleep, y'know." The young man said.  
  
"I know." Arthur breathed against his neck, laughing softly. There was a silence as his apprentice waited with baited breath for what would happen next.  
  
Arthur decided not to disappoint.  
  
He, himself, was only clad in a nightshirt... and nothing else, but he suspected Alfred had noticed that as he was in naught but some undergarment.  
  
"Don't you normally sleep naked?" Arthur purred, pulling at the boy's shoulder in order to get him onto his back.  
  
He couldn't see the blush clearly, but he could hear it as Alfred stammered a hushed, "S- shut up..."  
  
Well, the underwear was a poor defense against him and Arthur had it flung off in some arbitrary direction within a minute. With only the moonlight streaming into the room, he straddled the boy with his bare lower half.  
  
Alfred looked up at him, he could see, but he hadn't expected the muffled laugh.  
  
He raised a pointed, if bushy, eyebrow. "Have I something on my face?"  
  
The apprentice shook his head, seemingly very composed for someone who was having his dick straddled by another man. "N- no, just... just you look really, ah..." Alfred hesitated, suddenly bashful, "er... _cute_... in that shirt, I mean..."  
  
Arthur examined himself. The nightshirt was just a simple, button up cotton wear, but it was a little too big for his frame and the sleeves bunched up at the end.  
  
... He didn't understand.  
  
"Fine." He said, shirking the item. "No, don't protest-- cuteness will only distract you." Not that he believed said cuteness to be a real thing, but that was subjective, so really he had no say.  
  
It was a bit flattering... if confusing, he would admit.  
  
Alfred seemed to only just now realize that Arthur's lower half was pressing down on his cock, but his body had noticed long ago and had made that particular part of him swell with blood in pleasant greeting. "S- so we're... we're going to, um..."  
  
"No." Arthur said, exhaling a breath. "We're starting out small."  
  
"I thought we already did that?"  
  
"This is a process, love. Let me enjoy it." Arthur chided, flicking the younger man's forehead with a finger. Pulling the covers up over them, he leaned down until he was flush against that broader chest, their erections pressed neatly together between their stomachs.  
  
Alfred's breathing was quick, but controlled, as though he were anxious to know what was to happen next.  
  
Reaching between them, Arthur half-lay on his arm as he took their members in one hand, stifling his own gasp as he pumped them together. It was a strange feeling, that of heated flesh on heated flesh, but it was always the peculiarity that really got to him... This feeling that an act like this was somehow lewd in nature.  
  
His apprentice must have thought so as well, because he was taking soft, gasping breaths now. Arthur drank it in.  
  
He knew what Alfred was feeling because he, himself, felt it as well. As he fed on him, the pleasure pooled in Arthur and spread to every, tingling limb, bursting with the same euphoria as it did in his apprentice. Coupled with  _his own_  pleasure, he groaned as he continued to rub their erections together in a brilliantly simultaneous stroke. He could already feel himself leaking, precum beading at the tip in anticipation.  
  
Alfred was a mess beneath him, but he knew why. He could feel it. He could feel the situation intoxicating his mind with need, he could feel the spasms of pleasure, the way his hips simply  _had_  to lurch forward into Arthur's hand...  
  
He could feel him reaching the edge quickly.  
  
" _Oh god_ , Arthur I--  _nnh_..."  
  
Arthur pressed his sweat-dampened forehead to the other man's chest and murmured a breathless, "I- I know poppet..."  
  
Before anything else could be said, Alfred was coming in messing spurts onto his hand and their combined stomachs and, overwhelmed, Arthur yelped as he began to as well, still pumping them together furious and slicked by their mixed fluids.  
  
For a minute they simply lay there together, gasping. Arthur could feel the energy just  _radiating_  off of Alfred in waves and he absorbed every particle of it, letting none escape as it would only dissipate in the air into nothingness...  
  
He felt... full.  
  
 _Content_.  
  
It was stupendous and he let himself fall into a lull as he tiredly remained limp atop his companion.  
  
That was until the boy spoke, still sounding appreciatively winded, "I- I don't know what you did... but you're _really_  fucking good at it."  
  
Arthur smiled against the semen-wet skin and wondered just how many times he would be able to get Alfred to say that.


	12. In Which Arthur Gets Upset

Arthur always seemed to like to surprise Alfred over meals, which began to make the apprentice in question suspicious whenever those deep, emerald eyes would peer at him coyly over a cup of steaming tea.  
  
His current suspicion was only confirmed when the wizard opened those wet, peach colored lips to say, "Did you know that when you orgasm all of the candles in the room burn brighter?"  
  
Whatever he had been expecting,  _that_  was  _not_  it. He nearly choked on his potato.  
  
The slimmer man just waited patiently for him to finish coughing with an expression that looked pleased. Alfred glowered slightly, feeling tricked. "Did you just make that up to fuck with me?" He managed in between coughs as he reached for his glass of water.  
  
"No. I'm positive I could be more creative than that, if I tried." Arthur took a delicate sip of his tea. "I just thought you might like to know, is all."  
  
Still feeling a bit off from his food going down the wrong pipe, Alfred just shook his head. "What does it matter to me what the candles do...?"  
  
Arthur tapped a finger to his own cheek, the movement slightly mesmerizing. "You're channeling fire. No human channels fire naturally... Yet you do."  
  
Alfred stared at him. This conversation seemed to have some weight to it that he couldn't quite grasp. "What does that mean?"  
  
"You're not entirely human." Arthur said simply, taking another sip as though completely oblivious to the way those words hit Alfred like a bag of bricks.  
  
The apprentice shook his head again, this time fervently. "No, no, no,  _no_. I'm not some half-hybrid freak show monster baby. You can mess with me all you want but I won't have you badmouth my ma like this. My  _parents_  aren't  _monsters_. I don't know what the hell you gain from imply--," As Alfred glanced up, he faltered.  
  
Arthur was just staring at him, but there was this look on his face...  
  
He looked so positively and perfectly broken that Alfred could only stare in muted silence as he felt his throat constrict painfully. "Arthur, I--,"  
  
"Excuse me." The wizard said, placing his tea cup down on the table haphazardly. Within moments he was gone from the room, seemingly fleeing the situation.  
  
For a few moments Alfred could only stare down at the tea.  
  
This was the first time he had ever seen Arthur leave a cup anything but empty...  
  
  
  
He didn't see the wizard for the rest of the day.  
  
It bothered him.  _Immensely_.  
  
He  _knew_  that what he had said had struck something deep in the other man and he  _knew_  that the only logical conclusion was that Arthur, himself, was not fully human. It was the only thing that explained the way his eyes had shimmered with raw hurt...  
  
Yet he couldn't find him to apologize.  
  
Eventually he gave up and simply waited for the man to show himself, but it never happened. Wherever he was, he had tucked himself away quite thoroughly.  
  
Consumed with guilt, Alfred had attempted to sleep that night to no avail. It was only around three in the morning that it occurred to him that there could be a chance that by now Arthur had retreated to his own bed.  
  
Suddenly eager to see if his intuition was right, he crept out of his room and down the adjacent hall. Meeting the door of the wizard's bedroom, he slowly eased the old wood forward on dimly squeaking hinges, almost surprised to see that Arthur  _was_ , in fact, laying motionless in his bed.  
  
Alfred realized suddenly that he hadn't really planned out what he would do next if he  _did_  find him, but inspiration struck and he padded softly to the side of the bed and crawled in under the covers beside the other man.  
  
It appeared this was enough to wake Arthur who, to Alfred's legitimate surprise, had  _actually_  been asleep.  
  
He even managed to hear the faint thought of,  _'What the bloody hell...'_  linger in the air and he blinked at the wizard's lack of awareness.  
  
This was the only time he had ever heard one of the other man's thoughts.  
  
" 'lfred, get outta my bed..." Arthur slurred. It sounded vaguely as though he were drunk...  
  
Sniffing the air, Alfred realized he could smell the heady scent of liquor...  
  
 _Oh fuck_ , he was way overstepping his bounds here. Arthur had gone out and gotten drunk, hadn't he? And all over what he had said earlier? The guilt tightened like a noose and drove him onward.  
  
It was illogical, but he had always done this sort of thing for his mother when she was upset long, long ago and so Alfred curled up behind Arthur in a loose hug, realizing that this entire scene was worlds apart from that of a child comforting a parent.  
  
It felt like they were  _lovers_.  
  
"Arthur, I'm sorry." He said into the other man's neck, soft, short tufts of hair tickling his nose. He heard a quiet,  _'No you're not...'_  flicker to life in the air. "I really am. I'm sorry. I know what I said hurt you and... I didn't mean for that."  
  
"So what'f you didn' mean t'?" Arthur slurred not moving out of the loose embrace, words not quite as steady as his thoughts. He must have drank a lot... "Y' hate types like me? 'kay, I gettit. Sayin' s'rry is stupid if y' still hate 'em. F'ckin' idiot..."  
  
Alfred flinched slightly at the reprimand, but there was truth in those words. "I... I understand. I know you won't believe me, but I don't actually... I don't hate hybrids... It's just that when I was little none of the other kids would be my friend and they... they called me a monster. I really thought I  _was_  a monster..." Alfred swallowed. "I thought that was why my mom sent me away, so I... I just reacted poorly to the accusation... I guess..."  
  
Arthur was silent but Alfred could hear a senseless hum of thoughts on the part of the wizard as though his mind was trying to parse all of the information. He couldn't make out words, but knowing that Arthur was thinking it over reassured him.  
  
"S'convenient, havin' a story like that..." Arthur said, and it almost sounded like he was pouting. The following silence was punctuated with a sniffle and a hiccup.  
  
Alfred froze. "... Are you crying...?"  
  
"Shaddup!" The wizard bit back, and he could feel the smaller man curling in on himself. Alfred helplessly let his arms tighten around him slightly, aware of the overly intimate position they were in.   
  
 _'It's so sad... Why is his story so sad...'_  
  
Oh... so that was it.  
  
Arthur was crying  _for_  him, not  _because of_  him.  
  
Alfred just took to rubbing his back gently in what he hoped were soothing circles. That seemed to calm him down a little, if only just.  
  
"Y're an idiot..." Arthur snuffled, sounding a little like an embarrassed child. It was slightly endearing.  
  
"Yup." Alfred said, pressing his forehead to the back of Arthur's neck. "I really am."  
  
 _'... but I like you anyway...'_  
  
Alfred froze at the sound of Arthur's thought, staring silently into the darkness as he replayed it over and over again in his mind.


	13. In Which Alfred Apologizes Again

The next morning Arthur had found himself enveloped in the arms of his apprentice and his head was pounding so furiously that he paid the scene no mind as he crawled out of bed and stumbled into the washroom. After relieving himself, he proceeded to meander his way to the kitchen in order to make himself a cup of tea. He threw some pain killing herbs into the mix for good measure as he set the kettle on.  
  
He sat at the table, hair a right mess, personal charm gone although his appearance had improved significantly from the feeding, and eyes red and puffy. He tried to focus on last night, grasping at the tendrils of memory for a few elusive moments, before giving up and glowering halfheartedly at the ancient wood of his dining table.  
  
An overly cautious Alfred padded into the room, peering out at him with wary curiosity.  
  
Arthur ignored him and yawned, long and languid.  
  
"So, uh..." The apprentice shuffled on his feet absentmindedly. "Good morning?"  
  
In response Arthur grunted slightly, the noise an obvious sign of distaste for the greeting.  
  
This only seemed to encourage the other man. "Er, sorry about... about yesterday... and last night, too, I guess. Um..." Alfred trailed off awkwardly as Arthur waved a dismissive hand.  
  
"I don't care." He said, voice raspy with sleep and a hangover. When Alfred stared at him, he just gave him a ruffled, cocky grin, "You were so taken with me that you had to join me in my bed? It's alright. I understand. Happens all the time, really..." His voice was tired and there was only an inkling of humor in it.  
  
Alfred frowned and Arthur just cocked his head at him, expressionless.  
  
"You know that's not what I meant." The younger man said.  
  
"Do I?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
They stared at each other, Alfred's face drawn in hard lines. Arthur just sighed.  
  
"Look, I remember something about an apology and I really can't be arsed to care anymore okay?" He said, feeling rather uncomfortable and looking away. Alfred seemed quite determined to discuss this.  
  
The apprentice pulled out a chair and sat across from him at the table. Arthur leveled him with an unimpressed look. "I made you upset and... and when I apologized you were clearly drunk so I wanna do it again." Alfred took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I realize that you're not fully human and I didn't mean to offend you. I just have some issues with the whole thing on a personal level and I guess..."  
  
"Yes, yes... childhood bullies and all that rot..." Arthur stood as the kettle went off and poured the water into his cup. "I experienced that sort of thing too... once."  
  
He didn't need to look to know that Alfred's eyes were boring into him. From behind him he heard the quiet murmur of, "I know this isn't really the time to be asking but... what exactly  _are_  you...?" It was hesitant and cautious, as though Arthur might fall to pieces from such a question.  
  
He honestly hated that that fear was legitimate and one that had been proven quite nicely yesterday. Words  _could_  break him.  
  
"I'm half human and half incubus. My mother was a powerful mage who fell in love with a summon she had cast that had gone wrong. She and my father both were torched to death in their own home when I was just a babe. I was raised by... someone else." He stared down at his tea cup, emotionless.  
  
"Arthur... I'm so sorry..." Alfred's voice was tight and soft, like he was struggling just to say only that.  
  
"You needn't apologize. I never knew them myself personally." His voice was empty of anything, as though he were merely stating facts. "Where I was raised... it was common knowledge who and what I was." He let his finger trail the top of his steeping brew, feeling the burn. "Children... are so very  _merciless_..." He murmured to the room.  
  
He jumped slightly as thick, warm arms wrapped around him from behind and suddenly he was annoyed again.  
  
"I know--," Alfred was quick to say, "that you probably don't want this. I just... I want to help. This is the only thing I can think of."  
  
What an overemotional, oversensitive idiot...  
  
Arthur felt himself relax slightly and he loathed himself for it. "It was a long time ago."  
  
"Still..."  
  
A silence fell over them and it wasn't wholly uncomfortable. Alfred was resting his cheek to Arthur's head and the wizard shivered slightly at the feeling of hot puffs of air against his sensitive scalp.  
  
"What do you think  _I_  am...?" Alfred asked softly, and Arthur blinked.  
  
"Well..." He began, focusing on the view outside of his kitchen window. "I'm not entirely sure. You're at least half human... and something else." The arms around his torso squeezed gently.  
  
"Probably my dad..." His apprentice began, "It was probably him that was the... the not-human one."  
  
From what he had heard about the man, it only made sense.  
  
A pause.  
  
"I hope I'm something cool." The boy murmured wistfully into his hair, exhaling a soft laugh.  
  
Before he could stop himself, Arthur felt his lips curl into a small smile at just how ridiculous Alfred sounded.


	14. In Which Arthur Helps Research

Alfred wasn't fully human.  
  
It was something he was having a little trouble digesting, honestly. On the one hand, it answered a lot of questions and he had to concede that, really, he  _was_  the monster people had claimed him to be, but...  
  
Knowing what Arthur was, he couldn't bring himself to hate that fact.  
  
If a stranger had broken the news to him he would have felt absolutely broken by it and he knew this. The idea that all this time, all those names had been accurate. Not just  _monster_ , but  _demon_ ,  _devil_ ,  _beast_ ,  _brute_ ,  _abomination_...  
  
All of it was true. He wasn't a human. He wasn't like everyone else. His powers were, literally, inhuman. He  _was_  a  _monster_.  
  
But so was  _Arthur_.  
  
He had known that Arthur was skillful in magic, but for some reason he had never questioned the man's humanity. There had been things he had said that implied he was hundreds of years old, but that was all just magic, wasn't it? You didn't need to be a monster to live that long...  
  
And when they had first met, Alfred had been terrified until he actually _saw_ him in person. Then he relaxed-- the villagers had been wrong. Arthur wasn't a _monster_. Alfred wasn't mistaken in following the rumor that a wizard lived here. Yet he hadn't been sure... so he'd brought meat as a sacrifice, just in case, as per the local village's suggestion.  
  
And then Arthur had proceeded to take the slab of animal muscle and burn it up into some strange crisp that he had proceeded to call dinner.  
  
Alfred wasn't sure, at that time, how anyone could have called such a stiff, grouch of a man a monster unless they meant the  _'Get off my lawn!'_ type...  
  
But now he knew the truth and the pieces all just fit together so perfectly that nothing else made sense.  
  
He now knew that Arthur could eat food but it tended to make him a bit ill. The only thing he seemed to be able to stomach was tea. It explained why he didn't exactly know how to cook worth a damn. What food would taste good if it all made you sick?  
  
Yet he'd cooked for Alfred anyway, despite all that...  
  
And he slept like the dead, too, Alfred had noticed. He could be roused, yes, but it was almost like being awake had exhausted him. Well... it  _had_ seemed that way until the feedings. Alfred couldn't imagine what it must have been like to sustain yourself on nothing but your own magic. He really didn't want to think about it.  
  
Arthur was an enigma, but there was... something about him that Alfred found compelling. And somehow the idea that this person was a hybrid made him feel accepting of his own status of one.  
  
He had realized, at one point, that that was because he still didn't think of Arthur as a  _monster_.  
  
He just thought of him as _Arthur_.  
  
So wasn't it possible for others to think that way about him too?  
  
"Oi." Alfred jerked his head up at the sound of the voice, blinking at his master with surprise.  
  
"Oh, um, hi." He replied belatedly, face slipping into a sheepish smile. "Didn't see you there."  
  
Arthur just shifted slightly on his feet and crossed his arms as he looked down at him. "You're day dreaming." He said disapprovingly.  
  
Alfred straightened from where he had been slumped over a large book, "Ah, yeah... Sorry, I guess I just got distracted." He looked down at the lengthy description of basilisks and sighed. He was only part way through the monsters whose names began with  _B_. "I don't exactly know what I'm looking for..." Alfred admitted, running a hand through his hair.  
  
Moving to stand beside him, the wizard dipped low to study the page, close enough that Alfred could smell the faint scent of trees and rain. "Basilisk...?" He murmured, surprised. "I suppose it can be attuned to fire, but I don't fancy you're the overly arrogant type. And from our little rows I doubt you harbor poison-- I would have noticed fangs, after all." He flipped a few pages in the book, skipping anything that wasn't fire-related.  
  
Sitting back, Alfred just let him do as he pleased, slightly absorbed with the task of putting Arthur's scent to memory. It was soothing in a strange way that he couldn't quite understand.  
  
Arthur stopped partway through  _C_  and sighed. "This  _is_  a tad monotonous, isn't it? I was hoping something would resonate with you, but I can't reasonably think that you're a some kind of giant or spirit or faerie..." He let his hand flick through a few more pages, now skimming  _D_.  
  
Although he had only been half paying attention, Alfred jerked slightly as he saw Arthur go through the pages. "Wait-- go back!" He said, sitting upright in his chair.  
  
Frowning, but alert, the wizard peeled the pages back until Alfred's hand shot out to stop him.  
  
The apprentice exhaled a terse breath. "This... This one looks familiar..."


	15. In Which Alfred Discovers a Lead

Arthur stared down at the page for a long moment before giving Alfred a critical look. "Alfred, if this is about  _being cool_ , you must realize that dragons have been nearly extinct for hundreds of y--,"  
  
"No, no, not the dragons." Alfred said, looking frantic. He jabbed a strange symbol on the page erratically, "This-- This here."  
  
The wizard looked at the symbol. It appeared to be sliver of a crescent moon with a single, thin line through it horizontally. While not particularly complex, it wasn't something he had cared to notice before. "What about it?" He asked, feeling faintly annoyed.  
  
Alfred slipped his hand under his collar, immediately gaining Arthur's attention, and dragged out a little chain with a ring hanging from it. "This was my ma's." The apprentice said by way of explanation, and Arthur watched the band glimmer in the room's light. "But if you look here..." Alfred continued, holding the band so that the wizard could see the inner rim.  
  
The symbol was there too.  
  
Arthur leaned back on his heels, trying to wrap his head around this. "Perhaps someone simply engraved that by chance?" He said. If someone had made up a design, it was likely that it would be meaningful to  _someone_ , somewhere. Yet even he had to shrink back slightly at his apprentice's disbelieving stare.  
  
"My ma gave me this when I was told to flee the village." Alfred said, face drawn as he picked at the worn page. "She said it would protect me... so I try to wear it all the time."  
  
"Ah, maybe an enchantment--," Arthur said as he moved to touch the ring, but just as his fingers were about to brush the cool metal a sharp, electric pulse jumped into him and he jerked his hand back. There had actually been visible  _sparks_. "Seems so. It's very potent. I should have been able to sense this item on you but it gives off no magical signature. This is some high level magic, Alfred..."  
  
Those blue eyes turned to scan the page again, frowning. "So maybe I'm--,"  
  
"Unlikely." Arthur said, but he was beginning to feel some doubt. Fire, strength, rage... The boy in front of him wasn't exactly displaying the wrong traits for such a thing. "The ring was probably nicked from a dragon's hoard." He concluded.  
  
Alfred looked dubious. "Do you have any other books on them...?" He asked.  
  
"Yes." Arthur replied grimly, moving to the half-dusted shelves that lined the library. The sun was going to set soon but with this looming over their heads he wasn't exactly going to bring up feeding, although he was feeling quite peckish.  
  
He might have brought a  _dragon hybrid_  into his home.  
  
He honestly wasn't sure how to feel about that.


	16. In Which Arthur Declares Alfred Ready

Dragons.  
  
Alfred had never given the creatures much thought. Most people were aware they were rare to the point of being legend. He, himself, hadn't entirely been convinced they were even  _real_. Pouring over book upon book about them, he still couldn't believe that they might exist today, if they ever had. They were too large and fierce a beast and the talk of hoards of gold and mountain caverns seemed more convenient than anything else.  
  
Besides, his father couldn't have been a dragon. How would that even work?  
  
"Magick." Arthur said into the silent air and Alfred gave the wizard an annoyed look for reading his thoughts.  
  
It was day three of their investigation and, strangely, Arthur seemed quite enthused about the research despite his refusal to believe that Alfred could be part dragon. Still he  _had_  been helpful in offering books, skimming his own, and pointing out interesting details here and there. "What do you mean, magic?"  
  
Arthur snapped the book he was holding shut and put it atop a large stack. "Dragons have exceptional magickal ability, lad. You think they can't take human form?"  
  
Alfred considered this for a moment. "I suppose that would make sense..."  
  
"Although I'm sure  _some_  lucky ones have experienced the real girth of a dragon firsthand." Arthur added casually.  
  
"Oh, wow, I hope not..." Alfred said as he stared down at the illustrated picture of a dragon. It was a bit exaggerated, he thought, but it had a plump belly and a gnarled face. He couldn't imagine someone having sex with  _that_. He startled slightly as the noise of books tumbling over echoed loudly in the library and he jerked around in his seat to see Arthur clutching his head and leaning his full weight on a side table. "Arthur!?"  
  
The wizard made a dismissive motion with his hand, straightening. "No, I'm fine, ah..." Arthur looked down at the books and Alfred was certain he'd begin to pick them up, meticulous as he was, but instead the man took a breath and said, "I'm going to go lie down."  
  
Alfred watched him go, frowning quietly to himself. Arthur had been working just as hard as he had been the past few days. Yet, unlike Alfred, he hadn't eaten a thing...  
  
When was the last time they had done anything, anyway? A week ago...?  
  
He wasn't sustaining himself on magic. Could he be starving?  
  
Jumping up from his seat, Alfred exited the library and went straight to Arthur's room, feeling anxious and irritated all at once. When he opened the door he found the wizard laying limply on the bed. Arthur spared him a tired look.  
  
"When were you gonna tell me that you're hungry?" The apprentice crossed his arms over his chest and gave his best disapproving glower.  
  
Arthur rolled his eyes. "There were more important things going on, Alfred. You needn't dote."  
  
Shaking his head, Alfred climbed onto the bed and straddled Arthur, enjoying the mystified look on the other man's face. "If you're starving while I'm around, then what good am I? I said you could feed on me. Why aren't you?"  
  
Arthur just stared up at him for a long moment, eyes slowly moving to watch a candle that danced wildly in the calm air. Alfred looked at it too and frowned.  
  
"You're not scared of me now, are you?" He demanded, feeling irritable.  
  
"I beg your pardon?" Arthur barked out a small laugh and sat up slightly. "Lad, dragon or no, you're like a kitten to me. All wide-eyed and rolly polly with a fat, cream-filled stomach." The wizard gave him a smirk. "Afraid is not a word I would use to describe my feelings for you."  
  
"Then what  _are_  your feelings for me?" Alfred said, before he could even think about the words coming out of his mouth.  
  
Arthur stared up at him, face blank and drawn in a way Alfred couldn't even guess at. After a few long heart beats those deep green eyes looked up at him. "Are you sure you want to be fed off of now? I can wait, you know..."  
  
The subject change wasn't subtle, but Alfred took it. "If you're hungry, there's no reason to wait. I can keep researching after. It's not like your books are going to run away..."  
  
"Some might." Arthur said, but it was probably a joke.  
  
Alfred huffed a soft laugh. "So... how will it be today then?"  
  
"So  _forward_." Arthur replied, looking amused. He ran a finger over the slight bulge in Alfred's pants. The boy wasn't hard yet, but that would change soon. "Perhaps we could do something a bit...  _more_."  
  
Alfred blinked. "More...?"  
  
Arthur gave him a flirtatious look. "I've decided to allow you the honour of bedding me."


	17. In Which Alfred Gets His Hands Wet

Arthur hadn't exactly planned for them to sleep together so soon, but he couldn't find any remorse for the spontaneous decision. He was hungry--  _oh, dreadfully so_. Yet it hadn't necessarily been for Alfred's sake that he had avoided the apprentice's services.  
  
It was a hesitation that Arthur didn't feel comfortable pondering.  
  
It wasn't fear, no. Just something else. This niggling sensation beneath the surface that called out to him like a siren's song. This feeling that Alfred's value exceeded that of his usefulness.  
  
 _"Then what_  are  _your feelings for me?"_  
  
He didn't know. He didn't  _want_  to know.  
  
Alfred was staring down at him with an anxious expression. "Bed... you?"  
  
A stirring of need flickered through Arthur. "Yes..." He confirmed, words like silk and chocolate. It was a little charm-- not too much, just enough to make the other man relax a little. "I want you inside of me."  
  
He watched in fascination as Alfred's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "O- okay... I... how do we do that... um..." He shifted, suddenly nervous despite his perch atop Arthur's waist. "I sorta thought when we did stuff it would be you to, um...  _me_..."  
  
"Would you prefer that?" Arthur asked, intrigued.  
  
"What? No-- I just... Okay... I mean, okay, yeah we can, um... I'll bed  _you_... I mean..."  
  
Oh god, he loved virgins.  
  
"Here." Arthur said, using his fingers to loosen the clasp of Alfred's trousers. "You begin by undressing."  
  
Alfred awkwardly took charge of removing his pants while straddling Arthur. And then, with much more hesitation, he took off his underwear too. He wasn't fully erect yet, but he was getting there.  
  
Arthur freed himself from his own clothing, kicking off the fabric on his legs until he was bare from the waist down. Then he shirked his hat and coat, but Alfred paused him at the dress shirt he wore underneath. "No, uh... I kinda like that on you, just, um..." Alfred unbuttoned the shirt with shaking hands until it was draping off Arthur's body by the sleeves. "There. Leave it like that..."  
  
The wizard rose a delicate, if plentiful, eyebrow. "Interesting..." He said, stretching, lithe and languid, beneath the apprentice. By now Alfred was quite hard and he gave the boy an appreciative, if amused, look. "Eager?" He asked as he ran a finger along the length, letting it pause at the little hole at the very tip.  
  
Alfred flushed slightly as he yanked off his own shirt. "Shut up."  
  
Arthur just laughed fondly.  
  
"So what am I supposed to do then?" Alfred said, sounding half nervous and half flustered.  
  
"As it's your first time... perhaps we should do it like this..." Arthur murmured, rolling over onto his stomach so that the curve of his arse was in the air, the shirt riding up. He could hear a hitching of breath so he spread his legs slightly, shameless. "Like what you see...?"  
  
There was a prolonged silence before, "The tattoo on your back..."  
  
Arthur grimaced. Usually his partners were too drugged on charm to even notice it. He had forgotten that Alfred would be different. "Focus on the task at hand." He scolded.  
  
"Oh, uh... right..."  
  
He knew Alfred didn't know what to do so he said, " Put a finger inside-- just one."  
  
His words were met with silence but he could hear his apprentice's shaky breathing and he could feel the bed shift as he moved. Suddenly a warm finger was being pressed to his hole and it slid in with little resistance.  
  
" _A- ahh_..." Arthur groaned, the friction making his head swim. It had been  _far too long_  since he had had something inside of him. Alfred wriggled it slightly, stroking his inner walls.  
  
"You're wet..." The apprentice commented, sounding awestruck.  
  
"Y- yes, well I  _am_  part incubus. Self-lubrication is not beyond me..." He moaned as Alfred started to finger fuck him, pulling the digit out before sliding it back in at an achingly slow pace. Arthur squirmed slightly, trying to feel more of it.  
  
Alfred laughed softly, voice sounding a touch husky as he said, "You're pretty eager _too_ , huh?"  
  
Arthur inhaled a breath, "Oh belt it..." he said, but there was no venom in it. "Add another finger..." He told him.  
  
"Already? Okay..."  
  
The second finger went into him with a slow, pleasurable  _burn_  and Arthur could hear a soft mewling noise well up in his throat. "Yes-- oh that's good. _Very good_..."  
  
Making a thoughtful noise, Alfred started to jerk the fingers into him a bit more roughly this time. Arthur just buried his face into his pillow, hands digging into the bedspread as he tried not to lose control of himself. His incubus side was so hungry and weighted with need that he could even feel himself dripping onto the bed.  
  
And the Alfred's fingers curled  _just so_  and he arched his back as he cried out, nerves firing with waves of unmitigated pleasure that tipped him over into a dreamy euphoria. He came, cock twitching as he strung threads of pearly liquid over the blankets.  
  
" _Holy fuck_..." He could hear Alfred breathe out, followed by a curious, "You're done already?"  
  
Arthur shuddered slightly from the feeling of afterglow, body starting to take on a fine sweat. "A- as I said, I'm part _incubus_ , poppet... I promise you I could do that  _ten times in a row_  and never tire." It would only take a minute or so before he was hard again. Refractory period barely existed for him.  
  
"Wow... that was... that was really  _hot_..." Alfred murmured appreciatively, still shifting his fingers slightly within him.  
  
Arthur could have laughed at how positively awestruck Alfred sounded, but there were more pressing matters to attend to. "I think I'm ready now, so please be a dear and fuck me already."


	18. In Which Arthur Cries Out

Alfred felt his cock twitch at those words, the wizard's request making his throat go dry. He removed his fingers, the digits sliding out with a gratifying, wet slickness. The fluid on them was viscous and clear and he wiped it off onto the already fairly soiled bedspread before taking Arthur's hips in his hands.  
  
His mentor's ass was smooth, a soft curve that he nearly had an urge to simply bite into, and he was exposed so completely that every little line of muscle was on display, like a feast for his eyes. The elegant sweep of thigh as it met buttocks to the small of his back which was marked with long, delicate ink strokes from some image obscured by the bunched up shirt.  
  
He licked his lips, overcome with a sense to claim this fragile form. He  _wanted_  Arthur-- truly and entirely. In this moment he wanted all of him. Every crevice, every nook, every wet hole, and every strand of hair. Breath ragged and heart thundering in his chest, he pressed the tip of his length to the half-incubus' hole, feeling as it began to slip in with relative ease.  
  
 _Oh sweet gods above_ , it burned. It was wet fire and the further he slid in the more he could  _feel_  as silken walls pulsated and tightened around him, gripping him and pulling him further until he was fully encased in the other man. He was only half aware of Arthur writhing beneath him, obscene noises rising in his throat like song.  
  
"F-  _fuck_..." He groaned.  
  
Arthur was laughing slightly, a soft, melodic sound punctuated with breathy pants. "How do you like the feeling of an incubus, lad?" He said, voice low and rough in a way that made Alfred's chest explode with heat.  
  
"You're... only half..." He muttered back, fingers digging into the supple skin at the smaller man's thighs.  
  
"Half is more than enough." Arthur replied, and then the walls around Alfred's cock  _rippled_  and the apprentice moaned, unable to stop an instinctive jerk of his hips.  
  
And honestly, once he started he literally couldn't stop. His entire body was pulsing with a needy heat that made his hips roll effortlessly into Arthur, and his fingers tightened on the man's hipbones as he jerked Arthur back to meet him.  
  
The wanton cries he was rewarded with made his head spin and the building feeling of euphoria put him on edge.  
  
Arthur must have sensed that he was already close, because he heard a laugh and then something inside of Arthur  _tightened_  on the base of his length. "Not so fast..." Were the words spoken and Alfred gasped as the feeling of needing to come heightened even as he didn't.  
  
"Wha--"  
  
" _N- nnh_...I have ways...  _ahh_ \-- to keep you from finishing..." Arthur said deviously, still gasping and keening with every inward thrust.  
  
Alfred wasn't sure whether he felt impressed or frustrated, but with how his body ached to spill itself into him he was leaning more towards frustration. "H-... how...?" He managed between groans. Arthur's body was tugging at him and he could have sword that the inner walls of the incubus felt more like hot, silky, wriggling tendrils.  
  
" _Magick_..." Arthur hissed, giving a sharp, pleasured yelp as Alfred hit what must have been his prostate.  
  
 _Of course_  it was magic.  _Of course_  it was. Alfred groaned, a half irritated and half pleased noise as his cock was gripped and tugged and pulled. Arthur's body was growing sweaty in his hold, a sheen of wetness that made his skin glow as the white shirt clung to him...  
  
A pulse ran through Alfred, sharp and strong and he made a strangled noise as he folded over onto the incubus, his stomach resting just above the other's back.  
  
"A- Alfred...?" The noise was distant and faded into moans as he began to piston into Arthur, the magic that kept him from release making his body tense.  
  
Another pulse and he jerked slightly, fingers digging hard into the flesh of Arthur's waist. His body was in agony now, but he couldn't stop his hips from moving and he couldn't stop the urge to tug that perfect, succulent ass back to meet him...  
  
A third pulse and he found his breathing ragged and choked as he shuddered at the full body ache that ripped though him painfully. Arthur was saying something now, but he couldn't hear it.  
  
The fourth pulse jolted him as it became harder and harder to think and he heard a ripping noise, and a crackling like thunder. He moaned against the body beneath him, tides of ecstasy rolling through him above waves of pain.  
  
And then he felt the spell on him evaporate and he came--  _hard_.   
  
Every twitch as he poured himself into the incubus felt like its own orgasm and, overwhelmed, he managed to jerk Arthur up until the smaller man's now arched back was flush against his stomach.  
  
Somehow his teeth ended up sinking into that perfect curve of shoulder despite a startled scream.


	19. In Which Alfred Eases the Pain

One agonizing moment seemed to stretch into eternity.  
  
Arthur was pulled up onto his knees by powerful hands that gripped his upper arms hard enough to bruise. The cock in his arse was releasing wave after wave of seed and he could  _feel it_ \-- he could feel the orgasm as though it were his very own, his mind irrevocably lost as the euphoria lit up his every nerve in his body like wildfire. Distantly, he knew his head was tossed back and his throat was pained and dry from a scream that had tore through his very being. The fangs buried deep in the fragile skin of his shoulder were still, but the pain that radiated in his body warred with pleasure as his mind lost the ability to think.  
  
And then he was released, rough hands letting go, thick fangs retreating from marred flesh, and sated cock sliding free of him as he crumpled onto the bed in a limp, bloody heap.  
  
His entire body was twitching as it struggled between pleasure and pain, but he would not be bested by a single flesh wound and he used his good arm to prop himself up, shuddering as his body absorbed every trace of sex in the air.  
  
 _He felt full_.  
  
A divine rush of power surged through him, dulling the pain of the open wound. He allowed it to encompass him, senses addled with a feeling of alarm as he released from his human form, dark wings spilling from beneath the shirt on his back, nails lengthening into dull, black claws, canines elongating, tail arching free from his spine, and horns curling out from wispy, blond locks of hair.  
  
It was a senseless moment as he knelt there and took a single, shuddered breath, life flooding into his incubus body. The power in his blood danced and singed a cool burn, like a pet eager to welcome its master home.  
  
And then, finally, his mind whirred to life and he spun around to face his so-called assailant.  
  
Before him was Alfred, but...  _not_.  
  
The creature stared at him from where it half-knelt at the foot of the bed, eyes a brilliant, surreal blue that met his glowing, cat-eyed green unflinchingly. Scales were sprinkled down the sides of its face and neck, a dark grey or blue color that shimmered in the firelight as evening fell over the window. Two leathery, thick wings protruded from its back clumsily, folded haphazardly like that of a baby bird's. A lithe tail of innumerable scales sat poised and alert as the creature stared at him, frozen.  
  
He looked so very human and yet...  _not_.  
  
It was mesmerizing.  
  
Suddenly there was a sharp look in those beautiful blue eyes as clawed fingers reached forward in an attempt to grab Arthur--  
  
The incubus darted to the side, floating effortlessly in the air in unnatural flight as his shoulder throbbed in protest. The creature-- _Alfred_ \--growled lowly and lunged for him, for which Arthur rewarded him with diving forward to meet him in an attempt to overpower the younger man. Much to his own surprise, Alfred was  _strong_  in this form, and they ended up tumbling backwards off the bed and onto the floor in a struggling heap. Clawed hands were grabbing at him, trying desperately to lock him in place as Arthur refused to allow the other man to dominate him. He was far too old to be losing like this to some half-blooded dragon.  
  
Which was, quite obviously, what Alfred was. No argument in the world could have denied what was right in front of his eyes.  
  
Despite his age and despite Alfred's strength and youth, they were evenly matched and their sweaty, mostly naked bodies grappled on the floor of his bedroom for what felt like forever before those claws caught the loose fabric of his shirt and, with a convenient twist, he felt his wings and arms tangle and, suddenly, in one rough motion, he had lost.  
  
Alfred was straddling him as Arthur tried to dislodge the arms and wings pinned behind his back, but there was nothing that could save him now.  
  
The incubus let his head loll back in defeat, tired and sweating as twinges of pain ran through him from his wounded shoulder. Would Alfred go for his throat this time...?  
  
He forced his breathing to slow and even as he stared up warily into those eerie blue eyes. Alfred's expression was unreadable, but there was something about the glimmer in his eyes that gave off a feeling of displeasure. As the half-dragon leaned forward, Arthur tensed, prepared for the worst.  
  
He was not, however, prepared for Alfred to cut off the sleeve of his shirt, exposing the open wound. And he was  _definitely_  not prepared for the feeling of a warm, wet tongue pressing against the burning skin.  
  
The incubus froze, stilled by shock as the half-dragon very calmly and carefully lapped at the wound. Arthur wasn't sure what to think as the pain numbed and faded over the course of the next several minutes, the throbbing dying down until it was barely noticeable, but he could sense some sort of magick about it.  
  
Suddenly done with his task, Alfred made a gurgling, pleased rumble in his throat that sounded a far cry from anything human as he started nuzzling Arthur's neck like a large, over-sized kitten.  
  
Pinned to the floor by the warm cuddling of a half-dragon, Arthur could only wonder helplessly what the fuck was going on.


	20. In Which Arthur Tolerates the Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's been quite a bit of concept art for Alfred's dragon form, both my own and fan art, so here are links to what's available.
> 
> My own concept art: [1](http://i.imgur.com/s8juDg0.png) and [2](http://i.imgur.com/gyP2HCF.png). As well as an image of [half-incubus!Arthur](http://snowyfoxmoved.tumblr.com/post/81273995422/down-the-rabbit-hole-concept-art-inspired) [sans horns] which I've been using as an icon on both here and my personal tumblr.
> 
> And then the fan art that was created by ~~bluloveliest~~ blulious and can be found [here](http://blulious.tumblr.com/post/81963434841). (´ ▽｀) ♡
> 
> Feel free to enjoy either design or your own! (I'll continue using the description for mine due to continuity, but don't let that discourage you if you like a different image better!)

The world was a magnified blur of scent and color.  
  
Alfred knew on some base level that he had no control over himself, but faintly he was still there. He felt drugged or drunk but whatever it was it was a sickly sweet intoxication that made him feel  _strong_  and  _powerful_. The ache of fear that had lingered in his mind for his entire life was gone, replaced with unwavering confidence. His senses were muddled but he acted without question, doing what he knew he should, moving in ways he felt he needed to.  
  
Beneath him, pinned to the musty floorboards, was Arthur, brilliant green gems for eyes that stared up at him in the darkness-- yet was it really all that dark when he could see with perfect clarity? Perhaps not...  
  
Arthur smelled like sex--like  _him_ \--and that fact was thoroughly pleasing to Alfred for some reason. The bloodied marring of the wizard-turned-incubus' shoulder was healing now, thankfully. The brilliant, rose red had alarmed him, but the dappling cherry marks his fangs left as scars gave him great pleasure. Nothing would touch Arthur now-- nothing  _could_  touch him without incurring a great wrath. He was safe. He was protected now. No one would ever hurt Arthur. This was what he had promised. This was his job. Arthur would never been in pain again. He had saved him.  
  
He was a hero.  
  
Right?  
  
Satisfied with his actions, Alfred sniffed at Arthur, trying to find the spots that smelled least like himself and rubbing against them. When he reached the incubus' thighs he hesitated at the creamy liquid that lightly coated them. That part smelled  _the most_  like himself and he purred as he rubbed the fluid onto his body like lotion.  
  
It seemed Arthur was growing restless, for he untangled his limbs and discarded of the red-strained shirt, sitting up with little resistance. Alfred just looked up at him, rising to meet his eyes as he felt his lips turn up into a pleased little smile, the tail protruding from his spine swaying gracefully back and forth.  
  
A tail and wings and horns... Somehow the novelty didn't warrant thought.  
  
No-- no, but Arthur's  _eyes_  did. They glimmered so brightly in the darkness at him. He could only stare.  
  
"Alfred..." His master said, to which Alfred gave a delighted chirp. It felt natural--  _easy_. The incubus faltered but continued, "Alfred, can you hear me? Are you in there?"  
  
Alfred cocked his head and frowned. Yes, he was in here. What was his master playing at?  
  
"Alfred... I need you to cooperate with me, alright? I'm going to find a way to change you back. Can you do this for me...?" Arthur began to stand up and Alfred found himself whining at the loss of contact as he looked up at him from where he knelt on the floor. "Alfred. Stay." The incubus said shortly and Alfred felt compelled to listen.  
  
He watched as his master struggled to pull on a robe, the incubus' wings awkwardly covered by the thin material, and a sniff rightly informing him that it hindered the ability to smell him. He growled lightly but stopped when Arthur gave him something of a look.  
  
"Where is that-- oh!" Alfred perked at that, intrigued as Arthur leaned over and picked up something that  _glimmered_...  
  
In seconds Alfred had leapt onto the bed and snagged the trinket from him, the item dangling carefully from his teeth. He wasn't sure why he had wanted it, but he had and now he had it. He paused, uncertain. Where was he supposed to put it?  
  
Arthur glared at him. " _Alfred_..." He said with warning, approaching. The apprentice did nothing to stop him. He would prefer his master be as close as possible at all times, ideally. The man's delicate fingers reached for the chain, but Alfred tipped his head away, petulant. "Alfred,  _please_..."  
  
The pleading tone made something wrench in his gut, so Alfred reluctantly handed over the piece.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
The incubus was studying it now, holding the chain carefully with black tipped fingers as a single, shining object hung from its thin line. Arthur tapped the dangling item, but, despite Alfred's expectations, nothing happened.  
  
He wasn't sure why he thought something  _would_.  
  
"It's gone..." The wizard hissed, looking awestruck. Alfred made a clicking noise in his throat, curious. Arthur looked at him. "The enchantment on your ring is gone. It's like it was never even there at all." He explained. Alfred wasn't sure what to make of it. "It must have been inhibiting your power... but broke when you-- well..."  
  
This didn't make much sense to Alfred, who didn't find himself particularly caring anymore. The item wasn't as interesting as he had first thought-- or rather, Arthur was  _more_  interesting as he stood there in a sliver of moonlight.  
  
Alfred reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging lightly. He wanted Arthur closer-- not standing there but lying here on the bed. The incubus gave him a stern look, but he ignored it. " _Alfred_..." The wizard said with warning.  
  
He whined again. It wasn't fair. He wanted attention. Who cared about a stupid ring? He tugged again, this time with urgency.  
  
Arthur appeared to give in because this time he allowed Alfred to tug him close enough so that they were both sitting on the bed. His master smelled sweet and he wanted more of it, so he nuzzled at his neck and softly drew a tongue over the now-faded scars of the bite mark.  
  
He felt a pleasurable rumble in his chest at the short gasp that elicited.  
  
"S- stop, you-- that's sensitive..." Yet Alfred didn't listen, instead licking the mark again and again and getting excited by the fact that it made the other man  _squirm_. " _Nnh_ \-- Alfred we  _just_  had a go and you're--  _a- ah_ \-- you're not exactly yourself and why the  _bloody hell_  does that feel good? What have you done to me!?"  
  
Alfred made a pleased chirp noise so Arthur tapped his nose suddenly, making Alfred blink and frown.  
  
"No. Now get off."  
  
Huffing, Alfred growled lightly.  
  
" _Alfred_..."  
  
He stood his ground.  
  
"... Fine. Whatever. I don't care. I'm going to sleep and when I wake up in the morning I'm going to change you back first thing. Don't you dare get used to this..."  
  
Victorious, Alfred wriggled as he curled up alongside Arthur, suckling and nipping at the newly healed skin of his shoulder much to the incubus' obvious distress.


	21. In Which Alfred Explains the Situation

Morning came far too soon for Arthur, who groaned as the light from the window filtered in and lit the room with a bright, warm glow. He tried to turn over and a heavy weight prevented him. Bleary-eyed and sleep-addled, he looked up at the body of Alfred that was sprawled atop him and the mystery of the poor night's sleep stopped being, well, a mystery.  
  
Pushing the half-dragon off of him, he slipped out of the bed and stretched, surprised and slightly unnerved by the fact that he was still in his incubus form. The robe he wore was nearly falling off of him and he gave a short huff of exasperation as he forced his wings, horns, and tail to dissipate, shifting back into a human. He flexed his hand as he watched the black-tipped nails retreat and made a tutting noise in his throat. "Such a mess we've made..." He muttered to himself.  
  
Sparing Alfred a glance, his apprentice appeared content to remain sleeping on the bed and Arthur realized this was as good a time as any to research a way to change the other back. He wasn't entirely certain what had triggered this new form, but he would wager it was the sex-- or rather, the overwhelming nature of sex with an  _incubus_ , even if only a half one.  
  
And that fifty-fifty split of his genetics really was what made all the difference. A real incubus or succubus was, quite literally, a _demon._ If it hungered, it fed. His father was tamable, surely, but Arthur did not know him and therefore could not speak on behalf of his character...  
  
Still, it wasn't something to be proud of-- this mix of blood.  
  
Pushing those thoughts back, Arthur exited the room as he tied the robe more securely around him. The bite at his neck pulsed and ached and he scratched at it slightly, finding no relief in that gesture. Whatever Alfred had done it was thoroughly ingrained now. Had he realized the nature of the bite prior, he might have been able to lift the spell sooner, but now it had had too much time to spread, like ink spilled in water.  
  
All in due time. He had to remain focused.  
  
Entering his library, he pulled open one of the books he had skimmed prior and sunk into an old chair, leafing his way into a section on transformation. He licked his lip as he ran his eyes over the delicate ink lettering.  
  
 _'A dragon takes its shape when it hunts--,_  
  
Useless.  
  
 _'The form may be taken when threatened--,_  
  
Unlikely.  
  
 _'When selecting a mate a dragon may--,_  
  
Irrelevant.  
  
Arthur paused.  
  
Wait.  
  
 _'When selecting a mate, a dragon may take a human's form in order to breed with the subject of its desire. Typically this does not pose a problem to the mate or the dragon, however complications may arise when handling fledglings.'_  
  
The wizard frowned. Was Alfred a fledgling? Yes, he was _young_ , but he was technically an adult in human years. Dragons, however, lived much, much longer. And if he was a virgin that would imply a great deal of inexperience. It was incredibly troublesome, if nothing else.  
  
And it said mate...  
  
Arthur bit his lip.  
  
Was that a euphemism?  
  
Flicking through the pages, he skipped some of the other scenarios in favor of seeking out information on containment. Where there was a dragon, there was a way to imprison it. And where there was a dragonling, there was a way to force back the dragon side. Of this he was certain.  
  
 _'Suppression'_  
  
Yes, yes, perfect. He skimmed the available information, discarding anything that had to do with slaying and banishment. He reached the end of the section and groaned, shutting the book with a loud thud.  _Nothing about hybrids_. Barely a single one of these books had any information about dragon and human offspring and it was infuriating. This was why they had been researching for days now, but the slivers of what they had found had been vague and theoretical. Information hypothesizing that half-dragons would have the upper body of a man and the lower body of a dragon was useless to them...  
  
Apparently, if Alfred was any indication, it was a  _human body_  with dragon features. Perhaps that was only one of a few possible forms, but it was the only one Arthur could say for certainty existed. Sighing, he rose from his chair in order to start for the kitchen. He could really use some tea.  
  
"Hey..."  
  
The sound of a voice in the hallway made Arthur's heart jump into his throat and he swerved on his heel, nearly stumbling over his own feet as he practically fell. The hand that lunged out to snag his wrist was the only thing that prevented him from meeting the cold, hard floor.  
  
Alfred was staring down at him with a wide-eyed expression, all traces of the dragon gone from his form save for the unnatural glow of his eyes. "Whoa there..." He said, looking just as surprised as Arthur was as he pulled him up onto his feet.  
  
"What-- but you were... just minutes ago..." The wizard stared at him, brow furrowing. "How?" He demanded, narrowing his eyes.  
  
It seemed Alfred knew what he was getting at because he grimaced and shrugged. "I don't... I don't have an answer for you. I just woke up in your bed like this..."  
  
"You remember everything--?"  
  
"Ah, yeah... I kinda do. It's sort of a blur, but, um... I think I remember the important things, at least."  
  
Perhaps this saved him some amount of trouble, but it was also equally frustrating to Arthur. The unknown was the worst thing to rely on for solutions. If Alfred shifted again in the future, they would still have no way to know how to turn him back. The half-dragon was staring at him and Arthur jerked his head away, unwilling to hold his gaze when he had such an open expression of concern on his face. "Well, come then. I'll make you breakfast."  
  
Alfred followed without complaint, watching him work his way around the kitchen. He could tell that those eyes never left him as a tingling sensation wormed its way up his back. "How do you feel?" Came that soft voice, and Arthur spared him a glance.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Er, after the, um... y'know..." Alfred cleared his throat and pointed to his own neck.  
  
Ah, yes. The miraculously healed wound.  _The spell._  "I'm fine. I don't know what you did to me, mind. Whatever it was, it was not part of the agreement."  
  
He could almost see Alfred rolling his eyes, even with his back once again turned. "Well  _yeah_. I didn't exactly think I'd be going all lizard-man on you either, okay? I just mean, I... well..." Arthur was growing frustrated with the way Alfred hesitated, so he turned his full attention on the apprentice. The other halfling stared at him, only hesitating further. Suddenly he looked away. "I was, um... reading those books you know... Just... doesn't it _bother_ you?"  
  
"Does  _what_  bother me?" Arthur's frown deepened.  
  
"The mark." Alfred said simply, looking up at him again. There was a strange vulnerability in those eyes.  
  
"I told you I'm fine. The wound doesn't even hur--,"  
  
"That's--," Alfred interrupted him, breath terse, "not what I meant."  
  
Arthur put down the basket of eggs he had been holding. "Oh?"  
  
Those piercing eyes were looking at him, the intensity strong enough to make Arthur sweat. "That mark... You don't know what it means, do you?"  
  
The wizard frowned, irritated at the slight towards his intelligence. "Well? What does it mean then?" He said, crossing his arms.  
  
That vulnerability spiked into something else and Arthur almost felt remorse but was soon distracted by the way the other man opened his mouth, sucking in a dry breath. "I made you my mate. As a dragon-- you're bound to me. Forever."


	22. In Which Arthur Soothes the Worry

The shock in Arthur's eyes, quite honestly, mirrored  _his own_  and Alfred fidgeted under the other man's gaze as a heavy silence descended upon the room. The moment he had woken up, realization had come swiftly--every memory fresh and vivid in his mind. This was something that he  _couldn't_  keep from Arthur. Not only was he terrible at keeping secrets, but Arthur would know the moment he attempted to read Alfred's thoughts...  
  
Moreover he didn't know what to do about it, so he had come straight to the wizard himself.  
  
Unfortunately it appeared Arthur, too, was at a loss.  
  
"No, that's-- no..." The wizard murmured and Alfred felt himself flinch involuntarily. Arthur must have caught that motion because he appeared to hesitate. "You're...  _sure_?"  
  
Alfred nodded. "I can show you the book I read it in..." He said. "It... detailed how dragons choose partners. They, um... It said they mate for life. I don't know how accurate that is, but I do know that they claim their mates with, uh..." He gestured to his neck, indicating Arthur's own.  
  
He watched as the wizards's fingertips came up to brush the area of the robe that sat over his shoulder. The motion awoke something inside of Alfred and he suddenly had the desperate urge to see the mark exposed. He suppressed that feeling however, digging his fingernails into his palm. "Well... This complicates things." Arthur said, looking thoughtfully out the window.  
  
Alfred stared at him. "That's it?"  
  
Arthur looked back at him, blinking, "That's what?"  
  
"I just informed you that I--," He swallowed, hesitating, "that I  _claimed you_. As  _my mate_."  
  
Those emerald eyes seemed to catch on and Arthur's expression turned sour. "I understand if you might find these circumstances undesirable and I--,"  
  
"Arthur." Alfred exhaled sharply, "It's not about that. I-- I've had to deal with this sort of thing all my life, y'know? I fuck up time and time _again_ \-- I've  _killed_  innocent people, remember?" He looked away, unable to hold the other man's gaze. "You're  _attached_  to that-- to  _me_. I... I'm sorry, okay? I fucked up again... I..."  
  
Fingers were brushing his cheek and he looked up, startled. When had Arthur gotten so close? "Alfred..." He felt mesmerized by those eyes, the depth of green making it difficult to look away. "We both participated in this. None of this was  _your_  fault..."  
  
"But--,"  
  
" _Shh_." Arthur said, those fingers now pressed to his lips. They burned pleasurably against the sensitive skin. "You have to believe me. This was not your fault. You, nor I, could predict this would happen. Do you not remember the ring...?"  
  
Those fingers slipped away and Alfred felt a pang at their lack of presence. "Uh... yeah, the um..." He tried to gather his thoughts. "... the enchantment..."  
  
"It's broken now. I believe it was suppressing this transformation."  
  
Alfred nodded. "That's... probably it. I should have never taken it off--,"  
  
"You didn't know."  
  
Arthur's continual reassurance was strange and Alfred could have marveled at it. Regardless, he felt a welling of emotion bubble up in him. "You-- you'll be  _attached_  to me and that-- that doesn't  _bother_  you?" His voice cracked at the end and he cleared his throat, trying to press back the urge to cry.  
  
Arthur had shown him nothing but kindness and this was how he had repaid him.  
  
With a scar that would last beyond the lengths of time.  
  
A dark shadow passed through Arthur's eyes. "I have been alone for many, many years." He looked up at Alfred, face an image of seriousness, all porcelain and smooth lines. "You are attached to me equally so. Whether we be cursed or blessed, pity shall be what we feel for the other. I do not mourn some illusory loss of freedom. What have I to lose? I hungered for much more than food before you came..." The wizard glanced away, as though having realized what he had said, but he made no move to amend his words, letting them hang in the air as truth.  
  
"I'm still... I'm still _sorry_..."  
  
"As am I." Arthur said simply, looking at him.  
  
Alfred wasn't sure why, but a disbelieving laugh bubbled up his throat, shattering the somber atmosphere. Arthur was frowning at him, openly perplexed. "Sorry, I just... we're so  _pathetic_." He said in between laughs. The half-incubus raised an eyebrow and he added, "It's just-- here we are, a couple of misfits just sort of stuck with each other and, I don't know, I guess it's kind of like misery loves company or, no wait, that's not it--,"  
  
"Birds of a feather?"  
  
"Yeah, that. Us. It's just sort of unbelievable, y'know?" A softer expression was lighting Arthur's face now, much to his relief. "I mean, if I had to go and accidentally mate someone, at least it's someone who I can't, well, kill?" He paused. "No that came out wrong... I guess, well... I mean..."  
  
"I can handle you?" Arthur supplied.  
  
"Yeah. You even finish my sentences apparently." Alfred pointed out wryly.  
  
The wizard's nose wrinkled. "I am just filling in for your empty-headed idiocy."  
  
"Same thing."  
  
Arthur sighed, but he took a few steps back to lean against the counter, looking thoughtful. "It is by no means the worst of arrangements. You were already bound to me for seven years via our agreement. Now that has somehow extended to the length of our lives..."   
  
"Yeah..."  
  
The half-incubus looked at him, lips curling into a coy, little smile as his eyes glimmered with mischief. "You have proven yourself to be far more powerful than I had dreamed, apprentice." He purred in that sultry tone that made an anticipatory shiver go up half-dragon's spine. "I am pleased."  
  
That comment really shouldn't have made Alfred as happy as it did, but somehow, in that moment, all of his fear and worry vanished, replaced by a welling of pride.


	23. In Which Alfred Desires to Know More

Today was Alfred's first day of training.  
  
Or, at least, that had been the plan.  
  
It had been three days since the incident, after which they took to their research with a renewed vigor. Arthur had read up, specifically, on what available information they had regarding a transition between human and dragon form. If the wizard were to hazard a guess, he might have said that there was a disconnect between the different parts of Alfred that caused him to be unable to control himself once he had changed. While the human side of him was mature, the dragon side was scarcely more than a fledgling.  
  
Arthur intended to remedy that.  
  
Yet it seemed not to be.  
  
"Still a human, I see." Arthur said, stepping off of his porch and onto the soft grass of the yard.  
  
Alfred had a collar around his neck and was chained to a hook that was wedged quite deeply into the earth. He had a proper sulk about him. "It's not easy, okay? And I'm gettin' tired of being out here."  
  
The half-incubus shook his head, "It's hardly been an hour."  
  
"So? I'm  _bored_." The apprentice groaned, flopping back onto the grass. "Can't I do this inside?"  
  
"You'll burn my house down, so no." Arthur said, moving to peer down at him. His form cast a shadow over the half-dragons's face. "I thought you said,  _'I got this.'_  when I first suggested the exercise..."  
  
"Yeah, well I thought it would be easier, okay?" Alfred flopped over onto his stomach, petulant.  
  
Arthur leaned down and ran his fingers through his hair, as he would for a pet. "How did it feel last time?" He asked, hoping to jolt the other man's memory.  
  
"I dunno... I guess... I was just so overwhelmed, y'know? You were on your knees and--," Alfred swallowed, the fingers carding his hair making little electric tremors run through him, "and I was  _inside_  of you... and you wouldn't let me get off and... and I was just gripping your thighs and staring down at that tattoo..." Alfred paused. "What is that, by the way? The thing on your back?"  
  
 _Of all the times_... Arthur exhaled in exasperation, having rather enjoyed the scene Alfred was setting. "Another time, poppet." He said. "Tell me more about the transformation..."  
  
"Oh, well..." Alfred bit his lip, thinking. "I was just overwhelmed, like I said before. It felt-- it felt like there was this thundering in my chest... I don't know how to do that again..."  
  
"I see."  
  
A blanket of silence fell as they both reflected on the situation for a moment.  
  
Alfred was the first to break it, rolling onto his back again and sitting up as he unlatched the collar from around his throat. "Will you tell me about your tattoo now?" The half-dragon asked, looking up at him.  
  
Arthur felt himself tense slightly. "You're persistent." He said, the edge of his lip tugging downwards as he cocked his head at him inquisitively.  
  
"It looked... really important." Alfred admitted, picking at the grass. Suddenly he looked up at him. "I guess... I understand if it's not something you want to talk about..."  
  
Rising to his feet, Arthur looked at the younger man. Truth be told, he  _didn't_  want to talk about it, but, after all that had happened over the last few days he could tell, even now, that Alfred was still struggling to cope with everything.  
  
He was struggling to cope with not being  _human_.  
  
"I will show you."  
  
  
  
The large bath spanned half the length of the washroom, constructed from wood and sealant and carefully connected to a stream that would fill a metal tank with water. Firewood was used to heat the water and, with a pipe, he could pour it into the great wooden tub. Five people could easily fit into the space it provided and he stared down at the paneling, watching the water rise up, slowly but surely.  
  
Once it was full, Arthur closed the pipe off and disrobed, moving to sink into the bath. The hot water nipped at his skin, like licks of fire.  
  
After a minute or two the door slid open and Alfred walked in, looking a mix of surprised and eager. "I guess it's ready then...?" He said, but when the half-dragon made no move to undress Arthur cleared his throat. "Oh! Yeah--," The apprentice pulled off his shirt in a hurried motion, tossing it into a basket before shirking off the rest of his garb and discarding it as well.  
  
Arthur stared at the younger man appreciatively, which didn't seem to bother Alfred as much as he had hoped.  
  
Without needing further instruction, the half-dragon slipped into the bath, sitting across from Arthur. The chill of night seeped into the steaming room from the half-open window.  
  
The wizard almost laughed at the discrete glances Alfred was making at the mark on his shoulder, the fang bites no more than pale lines on his skin. "You needn't act ashamed-- you put them there. You may look at them as you wish."  
  
The apprentice relaxed slightly, his gaze now fixated firmly on the healed wound. "It's...  _odd_ , but... it feels like it has so much meaning to me and I don't know why."  
  
"It's instinctive." Arthur said, although it was merely a guess.  
  
"I suppose..." Alfred frowned lightly before finally separating his eyes form the mark. Instead he met the half-incubus' eyes, sky blue glinting with unbridled curiosity.  
  
Arthur didn't need to be asked. Carefully he knelt in the bath so that his back was higher than the water and turned around.  
  
He was rewarded with a gentle gasp and then silence.  
  
The sound of water being disturbed played in his ears right as he felt fingers come into contact with the skin of his back, the pads of two fingers drawing down the length of his spine.  
  
"It's  _beautiful_..."  
  
"Is it?" Arthur said, a soft feeling of amusement on his lips. Alfred was like a child-- so gorgeously in love with the world and all that was unknown.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
The wizard saw the image in his mind's eye, feeling far away as he described what he knew displayed on his back in splashes of curved ink. "Incubi are not meant to be born of love." He said slowly. "Yet I was."  
  
Alfred was silent, but his fingers never left the skin of Arthur's back, instead tracing the elegant lines with a calloused pad.  
  
"Our backs are like a story." Arthur inhaled slowly, letting the air fill his lungs before exhaling. "I knew not my parents, but my story says that I was loved... and, to me, that makes their premature death that much more heinous."  
  
The finger stilled in its path.  
  
"You see a set of wings, do you not?"  
  
"Yeah..." Alfred breathed behind him.  
  
"What do they look like?"  
  
There was a pause before, "They're... intricate. Really,  _really_  intricate... Um..." The finger began tracing the lines of his back again as the apprentice struggled to find words. "They look like... like bird wings... but not quite..."  
  
Arthur smiled softly to himself. "They're a sign of purity."  
  
Alfred was silent.  
  
"It is unbecoming for an incubus to wear this on their back, don't you agree?" Arthur said slowly, letting his words linger in the air. "No spawn of demon would want me... yet no class of man would have me. I am neither here nor there, but that does not deter me."  
  
The self-proclaimed wizard tilted his head up, watching steam dance in the air.  
  
"I do not know what it is like to live amongst humans as one of their own." The words were as heavy as a charm when he said them, but none held magick. "You are the first who could see past that."  
  
"Arthur..." The sound of his name was like a balm when coming from those lips.  
  
"So you see, Alfred, I would be honored to be claimed by someone like you..."


	24. In Which Arthur Takes Control

For a long moment there was silence as Alfred tried to wrap his mind around what he had just heard.  
  
It felt like all the air had fled him in an instant. He had known that Arthur didn't  _mind_  the mating mark, but to actually be at all  _happy_  that it was there... but, no...  
  
 _Honored_  
  
He had said honored. As though it were a  _privilege_  that Alfred would select him for such a thing. He swallowed, his throat feeling tight as he his palm pressed flat to the half-incubus' back.  
  
"Arthur, I--,"  
  
"Alfred?" Arthur said, interrupting the other.  
  
The apprentice swallowed, taking a breath. "Yeah...?"  
  
"Will you touch the mark you left?"  
  
It was an odd request, but the idea stirred something primal in Alfred's chest and he reached out to brush his fingers along the scarred lines, hand shaking from adrenaline.  
  
Arthur exhaled a soft gasp.  
  
"Does it hurt?" Alfred was quick to say, jerking his hand back, but the wizard turned and caught his wrist, looking at him with dark eyes.  
  
"No, it doesn't." Arthur said simply, a world of meaning in his eyes. They were half-mast and clouded over...  
  
The half-dragon licked his lip, feeling a sudden sense of longing. As Arthur released his hand, Alfred let the digits once again meet that marred flesh.  
  
The soft, short moan he earned made his cock twitch in anticipation.  
  
And then there was a sudden disturbance of water as Arthur _lunged_ at him, knocking him back into the tub as their lips met in a feverish kiss. It took Alfred a second to realize what was going on, but once he did he returned the gesture in earnest, arms coming up to curl around his new mate, fingers digging into the inked lines on his back.  
  
When Arthur parted from him, leaning back, Alfred realized with some humor that his head was only just barely sticking out of the water.  
  
"I want to fuck you." The wizard said, staring down at him with piercing, hungry eyes. There was a surreal glow in those orbs, like emerald firelight.  
  
Alfred couldn't help feeling like prey, but he enjoyed that feeling as he let his fingers wander down to Arthur's hips. The older man's cock was already hard, the tip of it breaking the water's surface where he was straddling Alfred.  
  
"I want to make you cry and scream so loud the forest animals won't step within one hundred meters of the cabin." The half-incubus continued, and there was something so deliriously enjoyable about those words.  
  
If he was being charmed, Alfred couldn't find it in himself to mind.  
  
Arthur's pink tongue dove out to run over a single, sweet peach lip and Alfred suddenly wanted to taste him. "Well then do it already." He nearly growled as he leaned up and dragged the man back down for a kiss.  
  
A soft chuckle was muffled by his lips as he kissed the laughter out of Arthur, the incubus' voice turning its efforts to a pleased moan as Alfred's fingers shifted to dig into the dragon's bite. It seemed to have become a weakness for the older man as, as he knead it, he felt Arthur coming undone.  
  
It was the wizard who broke away first, panting and looking dazed, and Alfred felt a little shiver of pride at the fact that  _he_  had done that to him.  
  
He just looked so positively  _unraveled_.  
  
The half-incubus shook his head, some clarity returning to those eyes as they narrowed at Alfred. "Oh no you  _don't_..." He muttered as he leaned forward, one of his hands slipping between Alfred's spread legs.  
  
The apprentice didn't have time to question the movement as suddenly as thin finger slipped into his ass and he tensed, unused to the feeling of penetration.  
  
" _Relax_..." Arthur said, voice soft and fluttery as every muscle in Alfred's body responded at once, making it quite obvious that there was magic at work. "That's better..."  
  
The finger inside of him wriggled and Alfred felt slightly perplexed. This wasn't  _bad_  but it wasn't really all that enjoyable either. It just was what it was.  
  
And then a second finger slipped inside of him and he felt a little bit of a burn as he stretched to accommodate it. And then those fingers started to jerk into him, finger fucking him, and he felt a sudden welling of pleasure at the pleasant friction. It pooled in him, making his chest and limbs feel light.  
  
"Gah--  _Nnh_... That's not... not half-bad..." He managed, breathless, but he faltered at the way Arthur leered at him, the wizard's own face a flush red.  
  
Those fingers curled up inside of him and--  
  
 _Oh_.  
  
The sudden spike of ecstasy made Alfred yelp, legs twitching apart further as his spine arch. And then it was gone, as suddenly as it had come, and it left him panting slightly and shaking only just.  
  
"What about that?" Arthur said, lips curled in a cat's grin.  
  
"Do that again." Alfred said, completely enamored with the feeling.  
  
Arthur chuckled softly and complied.


	25. In Which Alfred Pushes For More

Arthur really had to wonder where being a virgin ended and being experienced began. He was fairly certainly that, if asked, the writhing mass of male in front of him would probably admit that he still thought of himself as such, despite having wet his cock with Arthur's arse. It seemed only logical that the working definition would be one's own penetration and, for such a thorough deflowering, he would have thought taking it slow and steady to be the best approach.  
  
Except that that wet hole was greedily devouring his fingers and Alfred was looking up at him with dark, expectant eyes.  
  
The momentary hesitation must have been noticeable for Alfred frowned and, in a movement that made Arthur's heart flutter, jerked himself down on the half-incubus' fingers, burying them up to the knuckle and letting out a satisfied moan.  
  
"Greedy..." Arthur murmured, mirth delighting in him. How had that wary little boy become this tousled young man?  
  
"Tease." Alfred shot back, looking on the verge of laughter despite the panting. "What're you stopping for?"  
  
Arthur shook his head, "No particular reason..." He smiled up at him, "Just enjoying the view, love."  
  
Alfred turned slightly red and tipped his head away to stare at the water.  
  
"What?"  
  
"... I... I kinda like when you say that..." He admitted rather easily, although Arthur was practically doing a cavity search on his body at the moment so hiding things was really out of the question.  
  
"Oh? You enjoy pet names?" Arthur said.  
  
Alfred looked awkward about answering that particular question, but then he finally said, "Yeah, I guess you could say that."  
  
Curious. "Well,  _poppet_ , I don't mind obliging you..." He purred as he thrust his fingers to life again, pulling them out to the tip before allowing them to plunge back into the slick hole as he attempted to aim for the other man's prostate.  
  
The strangled howl he received for his efforts made a rush of euphoria shock through him, the feedback making his head spin. It was just all so _raw_ and he panted as he shifted his digits and added a third to the mix, feeling Alfred's pleasure spike through their connection.  
  
"Y- you like that...?" Arthur asked, hardly able to keep his composure.  
  
Alfred's head was lolled back as he offered a slightly slurred, " _Unnh_ yeah..."  
  
The water of the bath helped lubricate the other boy as he stretched him, although it obviously wasn't as ideal as his own natural lubrication or, failing that, oil, but the half-dragon didn't seem to mind as he gave throaty gasps, bracing himself on the edge of the wooden tub as he let his hips roll into each movement.  
  
Finally Arthur removed his fingers and the pleasure in the air faltered as Alfred whined.  
  
Positioning his own cock at that pert, loose hole he heard the vocal complaint waver as he pressed the head of his shaft in and, instead, now Alfred was taking great pleasure in trying to force him in  _faster_.  
  
It was fairly surprising for a virgin.  
  
After a mix of efforts, his own attempting to go slow and Alfred's attempting to rush, he ended up inside of the other man up to the hilt, the tight, hot pressure making him dizzy as his skin sucked the ecstasy of the other man straight from the air.  
  
"Gods above, you're  _tight_..." He muttered, that body squeezing around his flesh as though trying to milk him clean off. " _Relax_ , love..."  
  
That seemed to work and Alfred calmed down a little as he eyed Arthur from over the water with murky blues. "You're goin' too slow..." He complained.  
  
"It's your first time." Arthur quipped.  
  
Alfred gave an annoyed grunt at that, "So? You said you were gonna fuck me and so far I'm the one fucking  _myself_."  
  
Arthur couldn't help it-- he laughed.  
  
The apprentice gave him a mildly scandalized look before pouting. "You're an incubus, it's only natural that I would expect, well... more!"  
  
"More what?" Arthur said coyly, tilting his hips up and slamming them down into the other man. Alfred's entire body jerked with the motion as he gave off a lovely little cry. " _Force_?" He crooned.  
  
It seemed that  _must_  have been the case because, as Arthur began to piston into him in earnest, Alfred's body went limp as he tried to rock back into the motions, a song of sound reverberating in the empty room with the slosh of water.  
  
Despite how overwhelmed he felt, he still managed to murmur forth a soft spell, the magick flickering to life in the air like a charmed snake as he felt it grip the two of them.  
  
" _Oh god_ \--," Alfred groaned, head lolling back again as he braced himself against the side of the tub. "What did you--  _anh_ \-- what did you  _do_ \--?"  
  
Arthur huffed a laugh, " _Nn_ \-- Why?" He said, "Do you feel more sensitive now?"  
  
"F- fuck-- y- yeah--  _oh god_..." There were tears beading in his eyes and Arthur could feel his own prick wet from the feedback.  
  
" _Good_." He continued crashing into him, leaning over with Alfred's leg practically thrown across his shoulder. Their movements were getting more desperate and feverish and, as Alfred's need spiked, his could only, helplessly, follow.  
  
He had meant to last a good deal longer, but in a suddenly burst of motion Alfred leaned up and yanked him closer, a hand coming down to firmly squeeze the bite at his shoulder, and a wave of his own, natural pleasure thundered through him like hot fire as he crumpled forward and came, body wet and hair damp from sweat and steam.  
  
His hand automatically flew up to jerk Alfred off, a quick spell on his lips as he made his palm feel like liquid flame on the other man's painfully hard member, and the younger hybrid came in a fit, back arching and head knocked back as his fingers yet again dug into the sensitive flesh of his shoulder.  
  
As they finished, pearly, clear liquid soiling their hot bath, Arthur found himself nearly collapsed against Alfred, his head resting on the slick flesh of his upper chest.  
  
There were no words for a long moment, only gasped breathing, but he laughed as he nuzzled the firm muscle of the other man's torso and said, "I take it you enjoyed that...?"  
  
He looked up in an attempt to catch Alfred's reaction, a smile on his lips, but he faltered as he stared up into ice blue eyes that glimmered ethereally in the light.  
  
The half-dragon cocked his head, a horn lightly scraping against wet wood as it smirked at him.  
  
Arthur stared for a moment, uncomprehendingly, before issuing the changed being an awkward, "Hello again...?"  
  
The half-dragon laughed slightly, the sound startling Arthur. And then it responded with a smart, smooth, " _Hello_." in a voice that sounded just a touch too deep and gravely.  
  
The dragon had learned to speak.


	26. In Which Arthur Prods for Information

Alfred watched as the human stared up at him warily, wincing only slightly as the man's wilting cock slid out from his body. It was obvious what had just transpired between the two of them and, with only a small search, he could find the memories to match. They had been copulating in the bath, consummating the bond between them, and he found his body sated and sore for their efforts.  
  
The smaller man stared at him, brow furrowing, "Alfred...?" It sounded as though it were a question and he couldn't help the confusion that tickled him. Who, exactly, had Arthur  _thought_  he had been fucking?  
  
"That is who I am, is it not?" He responded, each movement of his mouth feeling controlled and deliberate. "That is what you call me? And I call you  _Arthur_..."  
  
Arthur frowned. "Yes, but... but you're not  _the_  Alfred." He said. "You're not the  _human_  one."  
  
A wing twitched, the water making a soft sound as it was disturbed. "Of course I am not."  
  
"Then who are you?"  
  
The dragon felt his own face tug into a frown as he considered this at a length. "I suppose you could call me... an inner spirit." He finally answered, settling on that response.  
  
That seemed to be sufficient because an understanding look passed over Arthur's face. "Are you always present inside of Alfred?"  
  
"More or less." He responded. Suddenly shifting forward he saw the man lean back away from him, but he took the opportunity to wind his arm around that smooth back as he pressed his face to the scarred flesh of Arthur's shoulder. A ripple of possessiveness sunk into him, cool and comforting, and he sighed as he gave the skin a soft nuzzle.  
  
Arthur was tense in his grasp, but that motion caused him to relax, as it should have. He was Arthur's mate, after all. A mate knew its place beside its marker. There was no more comfortable place in the world than that.  
  
Leaning back, he found the man looking a little dazed, but subdued, and smiled.  
  
Arthur leveled him with a glare that he struggled to conjure from his sedation, "What kind of magick is this?" He asked, an inkling of anger in that voice that masked his fear. Alfred could smell it, thick and bitter like a miasma.  
  
"You do not need to be afraid of me..." He told him, feeling unsettled by Arthur's response. A mate was not typically this wary.  
  
"Why not?" Arthur asked him.  
  
His frown deepened. "You are my mate." He said, as though it were obvious.  
  
Arthur looked at him. "You chose to make me that. I never consented."  
  
Alfred was quiet for a long moment as he felt his eyes widen before confusion took root. "That does not make sense. The mark would not have taken hold of you were it not mutual." He argued. He wasn't sure what Arthur was playing at, denying their bond.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Sitting back in the water, he released Arthur and watched as the human put a bit of space between them. "A dragon cannot mark another  _without_ consent. You had to have returned the feelings I have for you." He said, eyes staring down at his own reflection in the water. He glanced up at Arthur.  
  
The man was staring at him, a hunted look in his eyes. "What..." He worked his mouth like a fish gasping for water, "What... feelings are those...?"  
  
The dragon tilted his head. "I love you."  
  
Arthur inhaled sharply, as though he hadn't expected that. He looked fairly pale now, that strangely anxious expression now being turned on the wall instead of himself. He didn't understand it. This was all so very obvious yet he acted as though this were news. It was baffling.  
  
Finally Arthur seemed to regain his wits.  
  
"I don't want to hear that from you." He said softly, looking upset. "I don't want to hear that fr-- from  _your_  mouth."  
  
Alfred frowned deeply, "Is there another who--,"  
  
"No." Arthur cut him off. "I mean... I mean if you're going to go around declaring your lo--," his voice cut out in a choked noise, " _feelings_... for me... then I want to hear it from Alfred's mouth, not yours. The-- the  _human_  half..."  
  
The dragon didn't understand, but as long as Arthur was not pining someone else then he didn't care. "I do not know how to change back, if that is what you are asking of me." He informed him.  
  
Arthur sucked in a dry breath, "I thought as much."  
  
"However, whether or not it is I that says this or the other one that you prefer, that does not change the fact that you must have returned this sentiment or we would not be mates." He told him firmly, slightly angry that Arthur would even imply otherwise. "Do you still wish to argue that I forced that mark upon you without your consent?"  
  
Arthur was scowling down at the water, but there was something mournful in his gaze. It looked like defeat. "It  _was_  without consent whether or not I-- I... have such feelings..." Those soft, pink lips twisted further into a frown, but then they suddenly eased. "I'm not angry that you did it."  
  
That was fairly surprising. "Oh?"  
  
"I have told you--the  _other_  Alfred--this already. Multiple times." Arthur looked up at him. "I'm not angry."  
  
"Then what are you?"  
  
In what Alfred knew must have been a rare show of honesty, the smaller man said, "Scared. Worried.  _Surprised_. I don't feel anger towards you." He swallowed. "In light of your--... your  _feelings_ , it makes sense. All of it. Really. I just can't believe that someone like myself is worth all that."  
  
Alfred found himself at Arthur's side in an instant, his arms curling around his distressed mate as he pulled that body close to his own. The man's emotions were wavering and faltering, threatening to spill over the cusp, and he guided that soft head of hair to his shoulder, pressing his cheek to the mark and making a low, guttural keening noise in his throat.  
  
Arthur noticeably calmed, his presence washing over him like a blanket. He felt the other's mood stabilize like a lake after a short rain. There were ripples from the droplets that fell from trees, but for the most part it was still and moving towards serene. "Better?" He murmured.  
  
There was silence but the hot breath of air at his shoulder, long and deep, told him that Arthur was paying attention.  
  
Finally,  
  
"That mark really is powerful, isn't it?" Arthur said, voice painfully soft.  
  
Alfred felt his lips curl into a gentle smile. "Yes,  _it is_."


	27. In Which Alfred Plays With Fire

At first Arthur had been slightly at a loss for what he should do with the changed, half-dragon Alfred. Although their last encounter had been remarkably different, it was easy to presume that sleep would whisk the apprentice back to his former state...  
  
It seemed that this Alfred wasn't content on sleeping any time soon, however. Whether he knew it would revert him or whether it was chance, the creature was more interested in following Arthur around.  
  
So he decided that they were going to take advantage of that.  
  
The half-dragon stared out over the lake, a mystified look in his eyes. Arthur tossed him a perplexed glance. "You come to the stream near here to collect water all the time. I find it hard to believe that this is all that amazing to you." He said, trying to see what Alfred saw.  
  
"Oh... No." That rough voice said, now turning his gaze to Arthur. "It is the sound. I can hear it clearly."  
  
Arthur hesitated, but his senses weren't as keen on sound and he was in his human form so he heard nothing other than the gentle lap of water. "Sound?" He finally asked.  
  
Alfred glanced back at the lake. "Every drop of water... every leaf... it's all alive and humming..." The half-dragon's lips twitched into a frown. "It's deafening."  
  
"Can you work around it?"  
  
"Of course." Alfred said easily, giving him a look that clearly said,  _'Who do you think I am?'_  
  
Well, Arthur really didn't know  _who_  he thought he  _was_ , but he was intending to find out. "I need you to concentrate on your power, Alfred." He said, drawing a candle and a candlestick holder from the bag slung around his shoulder. He placed the two together before lighting the wick with a flick of his wrist. Lowering the object to the rocky sand of the earth, he stepped away and gave it a wide berth.  
  
Alfred merely stared at it.  
  
"Can you make the flame dance?" Arthur asked, gaze shifting between the fire and the half-dragon's face.  
  
The creature's head cocked slightly, those eyes boring into the candlestick with its own heated intensity. The flame obediently flickered to life, wavering in a smooth curve as it bent and wove unnaturally.  
  
Brilliant.  
  
"That's great, Alfred." He praised, an actual smile rising to his lips. Sometimes beginners had a bit of trouble finding where their power was, but his apprentice seemed to have a firm grasp on it-- at least, in this form. "Can you make it larger?"  
  
In moments the lick of light swelled up five times its original size.  
  
"Split the end?"  
  
There was a pause before the tip of the fired curled in two, the slivers burning alongside each other before they split again into three and then four. It looked like a claw.  
  
Alfred was way beyond the league of beginner. They could properly move into intermediate lessons at this rate.  
  
"Splendid." He said, arms crossing over his chest. Arthur looked at the half-dragon, feeling a soft spot of pride.  
  
Somehow that feeling was met with a confidence not his own as Alfred glanced up at him with a smirk. Arthur's brow furrowed lightly at the transference of emotions. He hadn't realized there was a gateway like that open between them.  
  
"Now..." He said slowly, "I am ill-versed with fire drills but I have read some texts that lightly discussed the matter." Arthur told him. "Of course they were of no help, all talking of fantastic creatures as though we are a plague, but they did give me a lead or two."  
  
"I hope this is to be more of a challenge." Alfred said coolly.  
  
"We shall see." Arthur replied. Whether or not the other man picked up on this instantly or struggled, it mattered not. They would continue to move through the teachings until they reached his limit. "I want you to try to breathe fire."  
  
Alfred's mouth parted in a satisfying little 'o' as the other half-human seemed to hesitate on that, brow furrowing as his lips pulled down into a thoughtful frown. After a moment he seemed to collect his thoughts, stepping forward as he placed his hands on his hips. He inhaled, a long draw of air, filling his lungs.  
  
And then he exhaled a sharp, short breath, flame dancing free from his lips and tongue in a tiny stream before vanishing into the air.  
  
A silence fell upon them. Arthur felt frozen where he stood. It was a small effort, but it had come with such ease and grace, as though it were wholly natural, which, he wagered, it  _was_.  
  
Moreover, it had been a sight to behold as those rosy lips exhaled fire, the light an unnatural reddish orange, brighter than any candle. It had had magick about it, through and through.  
  
Even in this form, Alfred was giddy, that slim length of tail twitching slightly with happiness. And so, of course, he repeated the exercise again. And again. And again. He had this overt glee about him, like a child learning to walk. This was a new power-- this was something he was  _meant_  to be able to do. And now here he was, doing it, as though it had all suddenly just clicked for him.  
  
"Arthur, watch!" The normally collected being said, his voice filled to burst with excitement. The wizard could, for a moment, see the normal Alfred in him.  
  
And then the half-dragon sucked in a great breath before exhaling the full of it, fire coming to life in the air as it traveled meters away from his body in a brilliant stream of power and heat. Even from where he stood, Arthur could feel the sudden onslaught of warmth, a sheen of sweat threatening to break out.  
  
A scream distracted him and Alfred cut off the fire show, having heard the noise as well. As he turned, he saw a man--one of the villagers--collapsed back on his haunches as though he had just fallen. He was staring at them, mouth agape and skin pale, and then, words replaced by a yelp, the man stumbled clumsily to his feet and fled, crashing away through the forest.  
  
Alfred nearly made to follow, a hard set to his face, but Arthur grabbed his arm as he passed by.  
  
"Alfred, no."  
  
"He saw us. He's going to tell the village."  
  
The half-incubus' heart sank. "I know, but attempting to prevent him will only escalate things." He gave his changed apprentice an apologetic look. "We cannot act and risk starting such a war."  
  
The half-dragon didn't relax, instead staring at the trees with a rather impressive scowl. "Fine. I will not follow him."  
  
"That is for the best." Arthur assured. Looking to the candle, he found the stick to have melted down to its core from Alfred's last show of power, the white wax cooling over the rocks of the lake side. The entire thing was probably too hot to retrieve now, but he was hesitant about lingering here. "Let's go back." He said, starting again for home.  
  
Alfred spared the melted candle a glance before following after him.  
  
All the while as they walked, Arthur was lost in thought. The lake should have been safe from prying eyes. No humans dared to step foot so close to his home for fear of him. Yet there had been one and that was one too many.  
  
He glanced at the clear blue sky. It reflected back none of the knotted turmoil in his chest, the expanse a cloudless void.  
  
He was consumed by a deeply embedded sense of worry.


	28. In Which They Run

Unrest.  
  
Alfred could feel it. It stung the air like citrus, making his head hurt and his eyes feel as though they wanted to water. It was potent and thick, coating everything in an invisible mist, making every muscle in his body twitch and jerk.  
  
It was the day after he had changed into a part-dragon again and, as Arthur had predicted, he had shifted back right before waking up the next morning, but that weird cognition of the world around him stayed strong in his senses and it was difficult to deal with. He felt like a blind man finally being able to see or a deaf man finally being able to hear, but it was nowhere near so glorious at the moment. This  _hurt_  and made his head swim. Perhaps it could be considered a blessing in the future, but for now it was nothing short of agonizing.  
  
He could feel Arthur's every movement, the noise from the soft wood floor of the cabin reverberating gently in the air as he moved. He was getting closer now and Alfred looked up only a split-second before the man himself appeared in the doorway holding a cup of tea.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Arthur asked him, his voice loaded with emotions that were clear as day to Alfred's heightened senses-- concern, unease, tension, and a soft spot of something he had trouble identifying.  
  
"Like shit." Alfred told him honestly as he leaned back in his bed.  
  
Arthur hummed. He had already known the answer. "I brought you tea."  
  
"I hate tea."  
  
"It's  _magick_  tea."  
  
Alfred peered at the cup in his mentor-turned-mate's hands with open scrutiny. "How so?"  
  
The wizard exhaled a laugh, the sound making a warmth flicker in his chest. He could remember their conversation from the bath and a blush rose to his face. Every little gesture or action now, no matter how small or unconscious, seemed to remind him of just how much he liked the other man. He had been developing feelings for him since week one, but the mate mark seemed to have compounded that into something tangible that made it hard to breathe.  
  
If only they could get to the point of talking about it... but Arthur seemed to enjoy dodging the subject and he was too uncertain to press it.  
  
"I mixed in some medicinal herbs--oh,  _don't you make that face at me_ , you didn't wait for the best part."  
  
Alfred's expression of disgust didn't waver.  
  
"I found a spell that should make it acceptable to your tastes." The wizard looked uncertain. "It's... sweeter. I can't palate it, but perhaps you can tell me how it is?" Those emerald eyes turned on him, hopeful, and Alfred thought for not the first time how he wanted gems to match those eyes-- something he could stare at even if the man were to be asleep.  
  
Fuck, he had it bad.  
  
"I guess I'll try it, but so help me if this makes me worse." Alfred said pointedly, beyond unethused with the half-incubus' cooking. He had had more stomach problems since moving here than he had ever had in his entire life prior. He wasn't entirely pleased about the prospect of adding anything to his current list of ailments.  
  
Arthur faltered but handed over the tea cup, looking painfully hopeful. His emotions were spiking-- fear and guilt being among the most prevalent.  
  
Alfred felt a pang in his chest but soldiered on, looking down into the cup. The brew didn't  _look_  terrible. There were some loose petals swimming in the tea but they gave it a sort of soft, earthy elegance.  
  
He took a sip.  
  
And his eyebrows shot up.  
  
Arthur was hasty in pulling the cup away, "Oh-- I knew it was a stupid idea, I'll just toss this. Forget I ever--,"  
  
"Wait, no--," Alfred snatched the cup away from him, some of the tea regretfully sloshing over onto his hand. He frowned at it, lapping the sweet liquid off of his skin before looking back at Arthur, amused to find him red-faced as arousal started to saturate his feelings.  
  
It was downright dangerous to be able to read him this easily.  
  
Alfred gave a discrete cough. "I- it's...  _good_  actually." He bit his lip, giving the wizard a sideways glance. " _Very_ good."  
  
"Oh." The arousal was mostly washed away by a sudden giddy feeling and Alfred couldn't help but discretely hide his own smile behind the tea cup as he took a sip. He still hadn't told him about this part of his enhances senses. He wasn't sure he wanted to just yet.  
  
"So, uh... yeah. Thanks. This'll probably help." Alfred said. It was true-- the brew was  _good_. It tasted like a fine juice rather than medicine soaked water.  
  
"I- I'm glad..." Arthur stammered, but he was looking at Alfred with wariness, like he didn't  _quite_  want to get his hopes too high. "Do tell me if you begin to feel ill."  
  
"Ha, you'll hear me complaining if it comes to that, don't you worry."  
  
  
  
The tea had relieved some of his symptoms, but somehow, over the course of the afternoon, they became worse. He hardly thought it had anything to do with the tea, but that didn't stop Arthur from fretting over him slightly.  
  
It would have been endearing if his brain didn't feeling like it was buzzing with a hive of bees.  
  
It came at dinner time--  
  
This wave of unease that coursed through him as his fight or flight instincts surged to alarm. He stopped half-way through a bite of food, wide eyed.  
  
"Arthur, something's wrong." He said, staring down at his plate and not seeing it. "I don't know what, but... we have to go."  
  
"What?" Arthur asked, looking torn between skepticism and fear.  
  
"I-... I don't know. We have to leave here." Alfred's heart was jerking in his chest in pained jumps. " _Now_."  
  
He didn't even wait for the other man to understand, instead grabbing his wrist and yanking him roughly to his feet as he raced out the back door, his mate in tow.


	29. In Which They Stop

Arthur was tugged roughly after his apprentice and, while it was no feat for him to keep up with that hurried stride, he found himself distractedly glancing back at his home, alarm thrumming in his chest and making his shoulders feel stiff. What was Alfred on about? Nothing was happenin--  
  
A noise tore through the forest like a shot, a rush of heat washing over them in a wave as his home exploded, fire consuming the structure and all his belongings within as a plumes of debris flew into the air, some gaining quite a bit of distance and barely missing them.  
  
His mind raced--  
  
No sense of intruders-- cloaking-- explosions--  _magick_ \--  
  
Villagers? Hired help-- local mages--  
  
Someone had crept up on them and only Alfred had had the awareness to notice. He swallowed as he glanced at the one still dragging him along. There was a hard set to his face and Arthur was almost certain that his apprentice hadn't even spared a glance back.  
  
They had just very nearly _died_.  
  
"Where are we going?" He managed, his breath not even winded although Alfred had a slight pant about him.  
  
"Away. We're not safe here."  
  
Arthur frowned but continued running. It would only be a matter of time until this hired help realized that they hadn't been caught in the assault. He was fairly certain that whoever it was meant to kill the two of them and not just torch his home. It made for a crude and effective threat, but this had meant to surprise and kill. Why go to all that trouble if this were just a warning?  _'Leave or perish.'_  often involved mobs and torches, not  _this_.  
  
Around them he could hear, faintly, the sounds of humans. They weren't near, no, but he could pick up distantly trampled branches and leaves and the voices of men. They were being pursued.  
  
Alfred's grip on his wrist tightened perceptively and he knew his thoughts must have been in the same vein.  
  
They stumbled to a surprised stop when they met the lake's edge and suddenly there was a sharp look of panic on Alfred's face as though he hadn't meant to bring them to this dead end.  
  
Wax on near rocks told him they were at the same spot they had been first spotted at, but the candlestick was gone and he realized with some dread that that had probably been used as evidence for Alfred's presence. It wasn't a strong metal and had probably melted slightly under Alfred's heat...  
  
No mere candle could do that.  
  
Alfred released his hand and whipped around on his heels to stare at the forest's edge. "I couldn't hear them before, but I can now. They're crawling all over like bugs. I don't know where we should go..." He admitted, wild-eyed.  
  
Arthur bit his lip. "I can fly some distance in my incubus form, but I'm not going to just leave you here like that..." If only Alfred could change too, but, even if he were able, his wings were weak and unused to flight...  
  
"I can change into a full dragon." Alfred said, interrupting his thoughts as though having heard them. "I read it in one of your books. Hybrids can still take a full form. I could fly both of us away with that."  
  
"Alfred, now really isn't the time for experimentation..." He said. They couldn't dawdle here and brainstorm. Once they were found they would be surrounded and, as it seemed that the humans were combing the forest in search of them, it was only a matter of time. "We have to move  _now_."  
  
"Just... Just trust me. I want to try. I think I know how to do it now." Alfred flashed him what he must have thought was a reassuring look. "The other me--the one you spoke with before--he left me a lot of information..."  
  
"I really don't think--,"  
  
" _Please?_ " Alfred cut him off. "I want to-- I  _promised_  to protect you. So let me do that."  
  
Arthur faltered. While that was true, it was hardly relevant now.  
  
"If... If you're sure. Just  _hurry_." He said, letting his fingers trace a line down Alfred's cheek as it grazed the mark below his eye. The little ink rabbit symbol made a stark contrast against that pale skin.  
  
"I will." Alfred told him and as Arthur's hand dropped he stepped away. The shift was a magical one, it seemed, for he spared no thought for his clothing as he clasped his hands together, as though praying.  
  
Arthur had mostly expected nothing to happen, so when Alfred's body was consumed by a sudden rush of flame he had stumbled back, his heart lodged painfully in his throat as his mind jumped to concern.  
  
And then the fire melted away into tendrils as it dissipated in the air like strands of red thread, leaving in its place a great creature that was sitting back on its haunches, the pose near what Alfred had just been in while human.  
  
Arthur's head spun not only at the near professional transformation, but at the sight itself. Alfred was  _bloody gorgeous_ , his wings thick, leathery, and bordering on dark grey with a smattering of deep blue scales running along the top length. His entire body was coated in the same scaling, some of it speckled and tiny, knit together like a fine piece of art, while others were great hulking slats, like armor, such as the type that went down his chest.   
  
His eyes were a bright, glowing blue, standing out starkly against the dark scaling like a strangely colored fire.  
  
Everything was so perfect and majestic as he lowered his forearms to the ground, his body long and lean but thick. His very existence bespoke of a grace beyond imagination and Arthur stared, transfixed.  
  
At this rate, he wasn't certain he had any more he could reasonably teach Alfred.   
  
 _Apprentice_ , indeed.  
  
A coil of horror unwound in his stomach as he heard someone shout, "There they are!"


	30. In Which They Fall

It was reckless.  
  
Alfred was fully aware of this.  
  
But Arthur had radiated such a real,  _palpable_  fear that he couldn't help but feel the same emotion coursing through his own veins. If someone as powerful as Arthur felt in danger, that did not bode well for either of them.  
  
It had been so,  _so_  reckless.  
  
But it was the only thing he had been able to think of that might possibly save them.  
  
Of course Arthur could hold his own, but he couldn't just stand idly by as his mentor fought off the assault. His blood simmered with a need to  _protect_  and whether that stemmed from their agreement, his feelings for the wizard, or the dragon that viewed Arthur as its mate, he didn't know...  
  
Did it really, honestly  _matter_  anymore?  
  
It was all one and the same. He was all of those things, inseparably-- a student, a lover, and a beast.  
  
As long as he could protect the one he loved, that was okay.  
  
And so he had searched within himself for the creature he had unknowingly pushed back for so many years. He proverbially reached out with both hands to embrace it. And it had accepted the invitation, his body flooding with a supernatural power unlike that he had ever known.  
  
There was heat and warmth and fire and it held him gently like an old friend, coaxing skin to scales and teeth to fangs. His sense of self twisted and expanded as his body took a new shape.  
  
And then, after what felt like only moments, the chill of the night crashed down upon him like sea water, his body radiating heat into the air like hot coals.  
  
He felt  _alive_.  
  
His senses spun as they were overwhelmed by anything and everything. He felt as though he could hear every single sound in the forest and his eyes opened to find the world a pale blue brightness, like tainted daylight.  
  
Humans were quickly approaching.  
  
It felt all too natural to lower himself onto all fours, his body a tank of thick scale and muscle. He took a breath, exhaling fire.  
  
Arthur was afraid.  
  
He looked at his mate and, for the first time, realized how very base his thoughts were. All he could understand was that this was his mate. And his mate felt fear.  
  
The cause was obvious as men barreled out of the trees, wielding torches and weapons. Their blades and spears glimmered in the moonlight.  
  
And then there were a few figures wrapped in cloaks, some with books and, others, staves. Magic users-- he could feel the tendrils of loose power in the air and he felt a strange sort of disgust that he didn't understand.  
  
Somehow he knew that Arthur was so much  _more_  than any of them, his power so thoroughly contained and controlled that it was nothing short of admirable.  
  
How  _dare_  they believe they could harm him.  
  
The humans were amassing around them, the number beyond his ability to count. He could sense the heat from every body and hear the breathing from every set of lungs.  
  
He growled lowly.  
  
That must have snapped Arthur out of some sort of daze, because he was suddenly approaching Alfred, his head coming only up to the dragon's shoulder, and he tasted of wariness. "Alfred-- can you fly? We can get away from here..." His voice was soft, like cream and velvet.  
  
Alfred wanted nothing more than to press his face to the other man's shoulder, but he was distracted by a sudden rush of light and magic. He moved, bowling the half-incubus off his feet as a ball of fire exploded harmlessly against his scales. He snarled at the humans, who stepped back at first before growing bold again.  
  
"E's been raisin' a monster!" One of the men cried out. "They'll kill us all!"  
  
No.  
  
No, no, no...  
  
They had it all wrong. Why couldn't they understand?  
  
"Alfred!" Arthur was yelling and he was jerked to attention as the lithe human tugged at his wing. "Fly!"  
  
 _Fly_.  
  
Yes.  
  
Away from here.  
  
The humans moved in closer at that, rushing them.  
  
He beat his wings, the fierce gusts sending dirt into the air and making the humans choke as they tried to shield themselves. He needed to fly. He just needed to get up into the air. He just had to--  
  
He had to...  
  
 _How_?  
  
A crashing sense of terror came down upon him as he realized that, flap as he might, he couldn't get his feet off the ground. He was heavy and his wings ached from the effort, but all four feet remained firmly on the ground.  
  
No. He had made a mistake.  
  
This had all been a gamble...  
  
He'd lost it, hadn't he?  
  
A light weight suddenly settled on his back and he could feel a new aura of power. He tipped his head a moment, fire blue eyes meeting Arthur's ethereal green. He had released his incubus self...  
  
"Run." Arthur said, and his entire body met that command with action, feet moving as he made to escape along the shore's side. It was a spell and he  _knew_  it was a spell, but it had managed to get him going and that was all that mattered.  
  
Fire exploded at his heels, but he paid it little mind, only sparing enough thought to fold his wings back in order to protect Arthur. Perhaps Alfred had some immunity to fire in this form, but that didn't mean that his mate was safe from it.  
  
It seemed the mages finally caught on that that attack did no good, because a sharp cold suddenly tore into his leg and he yelped, the sound a fierce roar of noise as he stumbled but continued. There was burning in his side, but it felt like he was freezing. Ice...?  
  
"You're doing fine, love." Arthur said, his body pressed low to Alfred's as he hugged the dragon's back just to keep on. "Lift your wings-- I'll try to distract them."  
  
Hesitantly he did as he was told, shifting the great leathery limbs so that they were folded at his side. He felt the warmth of Arthur's chest leave his back as the man sat up and then a wash of magical energy brushed him as his mentor cast his first spell. He wished he could have watched it, but his energy was trained on running. If they could only lose the villagers, then they could escape.  
  
His foot suddenly sank into the earth and he stumbled as he lost his balance, his entire body careening forward in a roll. Arthur was launched clean off of him, but there was nothing he could do about it as he tumbled into a scaled heap, his wings sprawled every which way, his legs tangling painfully in one of them as he slid to a graceless stop.  
  
Despite the distance he had thought they had gained, the humans were upon him in an instant. He scrambled to his feet, tripping over himself as he backpedaled away, but the entire mass was closing in.  
  
"Cursed beast!" One of the men cried.  
  
"Kill the monster!" Another.  
  
His breath was coming in short gasps.   
  
He could breath out. That was all it would take. The fire would consume them-- _melt them_ \--into nothingness.  
  
He could kill them all.  
  
It would be  _so_  easy.  
  
  
  
... No.  
  
He  _wasn't_  a monster.  
  
They were fathers and brothers and sons. They were scared. He could feel it all over them like a sickness. They feared Arthur and they feared him.  
  
One of the men approached him cautiously, a sword in his hand. His armor was elaborate but worn. He was experienced... but old.  
  
And he was trembling.  
  
Alfred couldn't do it.  
  
He couldn't hurt this man.  
  
His entire body was frozen as his senses screamed for him to attack-- for him to  _do something_ \--  
  
The man spared no words as he suddenly lunged, the blade thrust forward before him aimed at where Alfred's heart lie.  
  
He didn't know why, but he closed his eyes.  
  
He heard the sharpened metal meet flesh...  
  
... but he did not feel it.  
  
His eyes snapped open as the scent of blood hit him, his entire body going rigid. The blade had not met him, but instead protruded from the back of another body.  
  
There was a wet noise.  
  
Blood pooling on earth.  
  
The grey wings stretched wide in front of him dropped, the arms that had spread to protect him growing limp.  
  
Arthur turned his head to look at Alfred, paying little heed to the man that was still standing there with his blade driven through him.  
  
There was blood dripping from his mouth.  
  
He smiled.  
  
"It looks like  _I_  protected  _you_  instead..." A soft, short laugh. "I'm sorry, love..."  
  
And then he fell.


	31. In Which They Cry

Arthur's knees hit the ground as his legs gave out beneath him, the blade sliding free of his body from where it was gripped in the rough, frozen hands of one of the village's men. He didn't crumple to the ground so much as he slouched, legs folded awkwardly, head tipped forward as he choked on his own blood.  
  
It was bitter.  
  
Yet it tasted sweeter than the alternative.  
  
Alfred was young...  
  
So  _bloody innocent_.  
  
Had the boy ever faced such a mob before?   
  
No, of course he hadn't.   
  
He'd told Arthur he had escaped one such group as a child only by the graces of his mother's aid. What that entailed, Arthur didn't know, but he would wager that that had been Alfred's closest brush with such a creature.  
  
 _Humans_.  
  
They were an easily swayed lot. It took but one for a mass to gather beneath that solitary wing, a building, blinded force that took order and command with an ease demons would be envious of. Was that not what made them interesting?  _Fun?_ How easy it was to convince a man to be a sinner or a saint...  
  
They were such blank slates in that regard.  
  
Yet he couldn't find it in him to hate them-- that lack of despise a weakness no true incubus would suffer. He couldn't  _hate_  humans. He could dislike them, but their motivations and intentions he found painfully humbling at times.  
  
It was just that... he had been so  _very_  stupid.  
  
He could have done  _so much_. He needn't step in front of a blade. He and Alfred would have been unharmed and they could have escaped...  
  
Perhaps he might have even been able to do all of this without harming a single one of the men.  
  
Arthur had been mid-cast when Alfred had tumbled forward, launching him off, and he had hit the ground  _hard_ , unable to refocus his efforts in time to avoid the painful landing. It had dazed him...  
  
And then, once he'd grasped his wits, he saw a man with a blade just as it was thrust forward in a fluid, decisive motion.  
  
A small teleportation spell. It took but a moment.  
  
And then sharpness and pain and blood and a million other feelings he had avoided all his life, all twelve hundred and seventy eight years of it.  
  
Oh  _how old_  he truly was.  
  
Was it not best to pass the blessing of life unto the new? The young? He had seen more years than most could hope for and yet it had all slipped by him, the hourglass' base growing heavy with the weight of his years.  
  
He could truly say that this was the most selfless thing he had every done.  
  
It was  _refreshing_  to know he was capable of such kindness...  
  
He coughed, the sickly red oozing from his mouth like thick saliva.  
  
His head felt light and dizzy.  
  
A sudden noise jolted him from his thoughts-- it was a pained, heartfelt whine-- a low and long, haunting melody. It was loud enough to echo in the small space as it churned and curled into a high, blood-curdling pitch.  
  
The mob had frozen at the sight of Arthur on the blade, but now they shuffled like leaves on a tree rattling in the wind. Their passion had been doused. Each and every eye was trained on the figure behind him.  
  
Utilizing what magick he had left within him, the offensive spells from earlier depleting a rather limited resource, he forced strength back into his body.  
  
The humans were watching them both, a mass of pale, scared faces.  
  
This was no longer a hunt-- it was a  _spectacle_.  
  
He turned his head just so, eyes falling on Alfred.  
  
The dragon looked positively beside itself, his eyes no longer reflecting an intelligent light. He was tensed like a limbed snake, prepared to launch forth and sink his fangs into open flesh, and a tremendous power radiated off of him like heat.  
  
He roared-- a true dragon's scream. The sound was deafening and a flurry of birds scattered from their trees into the blind, night air, driven by panic to escape the fury despite the darkness.  
  
The man with the sword had long since backed away from Arthur, standing just at the cusp of the crowd, his blade discarded on the ground as though he wished he had nothing to do with it.  
  
Such was the nature of the face of death.  
  
And then fire.  
  
Alfred had lunged forward, skirting gingerly around Arthur as he exhaled the first wave. The humans tumbled over themselves in an attempt to flee, none quite yet caught in that burning heat although a few looked to gain a sheet of grey singe in their hair. His apprentice was barreling towards them, scales and claws and teeth and flames.  
  
If that dragon had its way, every human here would be scorched to the earth.  
  
Perhaps even then its rage would not be sated.  
  
Thus be the nature of the vengeful.  
  
Arthur drew forth what power he could muster as screams and shouts filled the air. Moral had been demolished. The mob had found their vengeance and Arthur's presumed future death was already thick on their tongues and caught in their throats. They had found their peace and they had realized it a bitter one.  
  
Was it the nature of Arthur's sacrifice, perhaps?  
  
Who could truly understand the hearts of humans.  
  
Spurred by a strength not his own, he rose to his feet.  
  
"Stop!"  
  
The word was resoundingly clear in the night air, his magick making it echo loudly in every single ear. It had to reach the one it was intended for-- it could not be swallowed by the noise of chaos.  
  
Alfred had stopped.  
  
The magick settled on everyone like a blanket. Fleeing humans stared at him, bodies stilled by the command laden with the strength to halt a dragon. No one moved. They scarcely breathed.  
  
Alfred turned his inhuman eyes looked at Arthur with the gaze of one hypnotized.  
  
Then a light flickered into existence in those orbs, squelching the feral rage beneath pain.  
  
The sound the dragon released was one of supreme anguish as it started for Arthur, his gait slow, his eyes trained solely on the half-incubus. He made Arthur think of a man walking towards a casket having not yet grieved.  
  
The humans were beginning to shuffle away now, yet they lingered at a distance, curious.  
  
"There you are..." Arthur cooed, feeling tears suddenly prick in his eyes. He'd kept his emotions in check until now, but he could feel Alfred's very aura about him.  
  
He could feel the raw, undulating waves of fear, pain, and sorrow.  
  
Alfred's lithe neck was stretched towards him as the dragon's muzzle came closer, sniffing him. That beautiful, midnight blue creature gave a low, scared whine.  
  
"I know, I know..." Arthur said softly. "It's alright."  
  
Alfred looked so hopeful for just that one moment--  
  
"I cannot say for certain that I will survive this."  
  
\--and then it was crushed just so suddenly and completely that the dragon gave a short bark of what sounded like a sob.  
  
He was close enough now for Arthur's hands to come up, fingers lightly sliding into place as he cupped those scaled cheeks beneath his hands.  
  
He was mesmerized by those dazzling eyes. What a splendid, beautiful creature he truly was.  
  
"If I die, you mustn't seek revenge." Arthur said slowly, letting every word sink into that open mind. "You must continue to live your life with yourself even if I am not there."  
  
Alfred gave a hoarse, sad chirp. It sounded like protest.  
  
"Be a good boy, Alfred..." Arthur said, smiling softly. "I know  _you_ \-- you don't want to hurt these people." He was beginning to feel tired. His pool of magick was fine for sustaining him against hunger, but keeping him conscious through this kind of blood loss was far more taxing. He wasn't certain how much longer he could keep going.  
  
"I love you."  
  
The words surprised even himself as he spoke them and now he really could feel tears wet on his cheeks.  
  
"This isn't how... I wanted to tell you that." He chuckled, but the motion made him see spots. "But it's true. Even if we... haven't known each other very long..."  
  
He coughed, pain wracking through his body like fire and dimming his senses.  
  
Whatever was to befall him, he only had moments left of consciousness.  
  
He had to make it count.  
  
He gripped that scaled face and pressed his cheek to Alfred's warmer one, turning his head slightly to graze his lips against that flesh in a chaste kiss.  
  
" _Come find me_." He told him, words weaving into charm as the last tendrils of his magick flickered to life before embedding itself in those sky blue eyes.  
  
And then there was no more.


	32. Though We

Alfred stared as the body before him went limp, bright green eyes flashing--then a haunting dullness--before they closed. Suddenly the liveliness fled Arthur as he toppled over like a rag doll.  
  
No.  
  
 _No_.  
  
He was fine. He would be  _fine_. Alfred just needed to help him. He just needed to save him first. Arthur said he couldn't die so easily, so there was no way--  
  
He turned to the humans, a longing cry in his throat, and watched in horror as they fled. No.  _No_. Come back! Help him! Save Arthur! We'll leave forever after this, just please-- _god, please_ \--help him!  
  
They all skittered away into the trees, like scavengers abandoning bones. They had gotten what they wanted already.  
  
But no--  
  
 _Arthur would live._  
  
Alfred searched desperately for his human side. He wasn't even certain of what it was he was looking for when he suddenly found it and he came crashing to his knees, sharp stones digging into his palms as his dragon form dissolved around him instantaneously. He scrambled forward, hands reaching out to check his mentor's--his  _mate's_ \--pulse. The dragon in him was crying, but his human half was clinging to hope.  
  
Oh gods above, it was so,  _so_  faint.  
  
But it was there, right? So he could save him somehow...  
  
Could he move him? Where would he take him? Alfred didn't have any medicine or bandages...  
  
Stop the bleeding. He had to stop the bleeding.  
  
He stripped off his shirt and tore a great length of fabric. Gingerly, he tried to peel away the ripped coat and it came away after a tug. He felt nauseated, his stomach lurching in protest.  
  
There was so much blood.  
  
So,  _so_  much...  
  
He had to clean some of it away, right? Yeah. He would just clean him up and bandage him properly. Then Arthur would recover. If he could live without food then he could live without a little bit of blood, right?  
  
Right?  
  
Even as Alfred left his side to wet some of the shirt in the lake, he knew that this was no small amount of blood. He tried to push that thought aside as he wet the cloth, his gaze straying to his own reflection in the suddenly disturbed water.  
  
And then something odd caught his eye.  
  
He frowned, retracting his hands, and watched as the water stilled into a fine serenity.  
  
Leaning forward, he saw it all as the surface smoothed into one great mirror.  
  
The little rabbit looking mark...  
  
It was disappearing.  
  
No-- now it was  _gone_.  
  
A shot of horror rippled through him, so vicious and sudden that he practically fell over himself as he returned to Arthur's side. He frantically put his fingers to that delicate throat and waited, lowering his ear to those parted lips in search of the sound of breathing.  
  
Anything. Even if it was small. Please. Just anything to show he was still there.  
  
  
  
  
... Silence.  
  
There was no gentle, rolling beat beneath his hand. There was no soft inhalation or exhalation of breath. He was still. Quiet.  
  
He was dea--  
  
Alfred sat back on his haunches and stared at the limp form before him.  
  
When had he started crying?  
  
His face was wet and slick with tears that felt heavy against his skin. The chill made him shiver. The cold crept into him, overwhelming.  
  
He could feel it, but his body was numb.  
  
 _Everything_  was numb.  
  
A sob broke free of his mouth as a non-physical pain swept through him, the vicious coursing of feeling making his hands ball into fists as they scraped at the bare earth.  
  
" _You said you wouldn't die!_ " The words ripped free of his throat as he yelled them into the night air, the sounds dissolving away so he replaced them with more, " _You said I couldn't kill you!_ "  
  
But he hadn't killed him.  
  
He had simply been killed  _because_  of him.  
  
Alfred crumpled, his frame closing in on itself as his bangs brushed the earth and rock. "Y- you jerk--," He sobbed, choked and no longer yelling. His voice was weak and it warbled uncertainly in his own ears. "How could you-- how could you say that to me like this--..."  
  
Suddenly he leaned up again, staring down at that peaceful face. Arthur's eyes were closed, wings sprawled out beneath him. He looked so beautiful.  
  
Alfred moved forward to press his lips briefly to those gracefully parted ones.  
  
" _I love you, too_..." He gasped, trying to speak despite the tears. "You stupid, stubborn old man..." A small roll of laughter left his lips as he stroked that blood stained cheek. "I love your awful cooking and your terrible sense of humor and even your weird fucking eyebrows." His forehead met that cheek as he tilted his head, taking controlled gasps of air. "I love your eyes... and your fingers and... and... that stupidly beautiful way you smile when you've done something you're proud of... and..."  
  
His voice withered away.  
  
He sat there with him in silence until the sun rose, the only sound to keep him company that of his own, choked breathing.


	33. Be Apart

It took Alfred two days before he could finally accept that Arthur was, well and truly, actually  _dead_.  
  
He had never left his side, yet somehow it had taken him that long to accept the circumstances for what they were. He had failed to protect him. He had very well proven that he could not be trusted to even uphold the simplest of promises.  
  
And for what?  
  
Because he had, in a moment of utter weakness, frozen under the stare of a human's blade.  
  
Had he done  _anything at all_  it wouldn't have come to this.  
  
He'd told Arthur to  _trust_  him...  
  
And this was how it all came to an end. He'd had no control over himself. He could not be around humans.  
  
Arthur had told him not to seek revenge, but that was a pain he struggled with. He could feel every living creature in the forest and that included the humans. He could sense their children laughing and playing. How could anyone be so cheerful at so dark a time? His world was crumbling while there's had hardly skipped a beat. The parents of these creatures had ripped from the world a beautiful and loved being for no reason other than that they had panicked.  
  
They had  _set out_  to kill.  
  
It was maddening.  
  
Eventually he picked up Arthur's body and carried it along with him. Somehow his feet brought him to the remains of the wizard's house and he stared at the ash and burnt wood for a long time, thoughts whirring through memories. They couldn't even leave this alone. They really did have to destroy  _everything_.  
  
He put the body down and scavenged through the ashes, but his findings were limited. Most of the other man's belongings had been destroyed in the explosion or at least burned in the ensuing fire.  
  
But he found an old, half-charred bag and filled it with what he could. A small, strangely unmarred wooden box, a singed, slightly cracked tea cup, some old, now dirtied trinkets, and a few tightly bound books. He barely questioned what had survived, simply filling the bag with what he could before slinging it over his back.  
  
Then he located the tattered remnants of an old hide rug and he wrapped Arthur's body in it. He would have to find somewhere to bury him soon...  
  
And he wanted it to be close enough that he could come visit him.  
  
Now determined, he made his way through the old forest, a pang at the memory of his first trek here. He'd been naive--he still  _was_ \--but he could never regret having stumbled upon Arthur. Unconventional or not, the half-incubus had taught him more about himself than he had ever thought he could know. Perhaps he had even fulfilled his wish to some extent.  
  
He didn't yet know quite how to control his power, but he had all the basics to start. He could control his alternate forms to some extent even if the influence of instinct and heritage brought out different sides of him. As long as he stopped  _suppressing_  it so much... his grasp on it all should only increase...  
  
Yes, now he simply need practice. Arthur had brought forth so much in him in so short a time. He honestly wished he could have learned more about the other man in return. He knew so little. There was so much he had wanted to ask-- to  _know_.  
  
He felt numb.  
  
Everything was muted. The world around him had colors that felt faded or dim and his senses barely took in anything that wasn't strictly necessary. As he walked with Arthur and the last of the half-incubus' belongings, he felt a strange sort of weight settling into him.  
  
He knew where he was going.  
  
It felt natural-- _right_ \--and he found himself walking for a little over a day before he reached the mountainside.  
  
He made short work of burying his love before he continued on, nestling his resting place in one of the open caverns. It was perfect-- when the angle of the sun was  _just_  right it would shine a glittering stream down upon the earth where he rest through a crack in the ceiling. He affixed a crude stick grave marker, promising Arthur he would find him something better in time.  
  
And then, at the foot of the mountain, he changed into his dragon form.  
  
It wasn't easy to scale the side of the cliff face, but he managed as he clambered upwards until he found a suitable ledge. Satisfied, he turned to the rock.  
  
Using a fire only a dragon could so easily wield, he carved out a home in the stone. At first small, it grew bigger as he went, the controlled flames burning only what he willed them to burn. He started with a main foyer of sorts that opened into a large room. Branching from that, he added more great corridors and more great rooms...  
  
It was only once he was done that he realized he had somehow carved the layout of Arthur's home into the ancient stone-- an enlarged version, befitting of a dragon.  
  
He felt numb, but there was some satisfaction in this realization. No one could destroy this home so easily as they had the wizard's delicate, magically enchanted trees.  
  
And so he lived there, a large, brooding beast.  
  
For years he remained undisturbed in his home, leaving only at his own will, training daily, hunting, and never returning to his fully human form. He wanted nothing to do with those creatures any longer. Perhaps he would not seek revenge, but he could not consider them to be allies. Not when he had known so much suffering at their hands.  
  
He shunned humans.  
  
He shunned his own humanity.


	34. You Will

For two hundred years Alfred hid.  
  
And then he emerged from the forest, driven to see the humans out of curiosity. Their buzzing, noiseless presence had changed over time and he had, for the first time in a long time, taken a human form if only to investigate them.  
  
But he was no longer human. Not really. Not at heart.  
  
His eyes were sharp and cool, calm and unwavering. He kept his power contained and suppressed, not a single bit of it exposing his ability. It was something he had realized Arthur had done and he made a point to learn the skill himself. The half-incubus had been far more powerful than he had ever realized...  
  
The village had changed.  
  
It was unsurprising. The small wooden buildings sitting squat in the forest were now replaced by larger ones, dirt paths and roads winding through a sprawling, bustling community. He watched from afar as men in carriages drawn by horses would travel through before leaving. It seemed, in his time away, they had changed.  
  
But they were humans in their hearts.  
  
Could those have changed as well?  
  
It was funny. He had thought hybrids and otherly creatures to be monsters, but now he believed he had been raised amongst the real monsters instead.  
  
Someone tapped him on the shoulder at his cliff side perch and he turned cool eyes on a faerie, the small, feminine creature hovering in the air boldly.  
  
"Excuse me sir, I haven't seen you around here before. I was just wondering if you were new? You feel like you're from the forest." She cocked her head. "I don't mean any harm. I just wanted to ask..."  
  
A fae...  
  
Arthur had always talked fondly of them.  
  
Alfred gave the little creature a smile. "I live in the mountain." He told her, his long unused voice a low rumble.  
  
She blinked at him. "You do? That's not safe! There is rumor of a great dragon in those caves. You should be careful..."  
  
"What rumor?" He chuckled, a flicker of amusement lighting the darkness of his mind before it faded away again.  
  
"Oh-- the faerie, we have this story. It's a legend, really. A wronged creature fled to the mountain after his lover was slain by humans..."  
  
Alfred felt his body tense only momentarily, but, "This is a tale amongst yourselves?" He asked. "Or is this something the humans think too?"  
  
She looked surprised at that question. "Oh-- no it is only us. What human would be interested in," she paused, looking somewhat embarrassed, "well, a  _faerie tale_...?"  
  
"Mm..." So it was like that. He wondered distantly if the humans below remembered too, in such a fashion. How might they have painted the events? An evil monster slain? It was intriguing.  
  
Yet it reminded him of why he chose not to come here.  
  
Turning his gaze on the city he asked, "What are they like?"  
  
"'They'?" She repeated.  
  
"Humans."  
  
"Oh!" There was a pause. "Well... it isn't only humans in that town, you know. There are other things too."  
  
His gaze slid back to her, prompting her to continue.  
  
"You know, hybrids and even some full blooded. There's a mermaid that sells sweets from the center fountain. I don't live there, but I have many friends that do."  
  
Alfred frowned down at the town. "They... accept other creatures?"  
  
"Of course! That's such a silly question..."  
  
"Is it now?" He stood. He had seen enough for today.  
  
"Oh! Mister!" The faerie trailed after him. "You're not from... from around  _here_  are you? I mean... well, your accent is kind of old fashioned..."  
  
"Perhaps I am not." He admitted.  
  
"You actually live in the mountain?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She was watching him with small, curious eyes. "Can I visit you sometime?"  
  
He looked back at her, a small smirk tugging at his lip. "You may."  
  
And that was how he had made a single friend in all his lonely years.  
  
Despite what he had thought, the fae was undaunted by the challenge of finding him and eventually she had put two and two together, stumbling across his melted cavern home and the languid form of a dragon that was now half the size of a home.  
  
Her name, he learned, was Amelia.  
  
  
  
One hundred years later, the numbness and cold that had gripped his heart had receded some.  
  
He could _feel_ again.  
  
It had taken much longer than he was willing to admit to patch over the mistrust--to see the humans for what they had  _become_  and not what a single, clumsy group had  _been_. It had been a painfully slow process, but now he found himself wandering their growing city more and more frequently. At first it had been every fifteen years... then five... and now he enjoyed visiting a few times a year.  
  
The wounds were healing. It was slow, but it was there. The heartache was a faraway fondness. He could never take another mate for as long as he lived, as was dragon tradition, but that mattered not. He still loved his own, even if they were not together.  
  
And, naturally, it was only once he had accepted it all that this peaceful sense of closure would be ripped from him by the events to come.


	35. Always Have

He felt... _restless_.  
  
It was a pervasive feeling, like a headache that didn't hurt. Every muscle in his body sung for a movement he didn't know. It was like he wanted to stretch and fly but even indulging in that, cloaking himself invisible in the endless blue of the sky, resulted in no satisfaction. It was a tug-- a  _yearning_. It burned within him.  
  
But the most grating aspect was that it felt like magic that wasn't his own.  
  
He was long familiar with his own abilities. He knew the ins and outs of what his own spells felt like. This was different. It was familiar in a way, but it ate at him. He couldn't quite grasp what it was, as though the idea was on the tip of his tongue.  
  
He  _should have_  known, but he simply didn't.  
  
When Amelia visited, he expressed his discomfort to her. Little blue eyes widened as she twittered about him. "Oh, oh! Maybe it's your breeding season!"  
  
He snuffed, the noise loud in his dragon form. "I highly doubt that." He tilted his head slightly where it lay across his forearms. "What should I do?"  
  
"I dunno." The faerie just grinned at him, ever cheerful. "Have you tried seeing what it wants?"  
  
"What it... wants?" He echoed.  
  
"Yeah. If it's bothering you so much and you're  _sure_  it's not your spell, you should go see what it wants. Maybe you need to perform some great ritual passed down by your ancestors or maybe you're being called to go defend a fair maiden in a castle..."  
  
Alfred wasn't sure if she was joking or not, but the root of her suggestion warranted thought.  
  
Do what it wants, huh?  
  
What  _did_  it want?  
  
He searched himself.  
  
It wanted him to move. Yes. That was definitely it.  
  
"I suppose I will do as you have suggested." He said, lazily rising to his feet. He made his way to the cave entrance, his body flickering into invisibility right before he moved onto the ledge. And without further word to the faerie, he took off in flight.  
  
She raised an eyebrow at his abrupt exit. "Wow, something really  _is_  eating at 'im..."  
  
  
  
The pull led him to the city.  
  
It had grown stronger now.  
  
Alfred casually took his fully human form. As much as they accepted hybrids, he was not yet comfortable with the idea of revealing the presence of a dragon. He knew better than to tempt fate. Pressing back any residue of magical energy, he wandered into the city.  
  
He knew not what it was that led him.  
  
It was easy to feel as it softly coaxed him onward, the tug gently increasing. If he turned back now, he had a feeling that it would only become worse. Still, this entire thing had him on edge. It could be a trap made to lure him out. Hunters were a thing of the past, but when had humanity ever truly escaped its darker side? A dragon's horn was good for erectile dysfunction, he had heard.  
  
What absolute garbage.  
  
He continued along on the path. It was early evening, the lamps lining the streets lighting the way. He heard human children playing and parents calling them to dinner. Lovers strode hand in hand along the walkways, some humans, some not. It was a sight. He usually never came here this late in the day, when everything was beginning to calm in a soothing, domestic bliss.  
  
It made him envious in a way.  
  
He pressed back that thought and focused solely on the spell. He couldn't let his guard down this far in.  
  
It led him, strangely, to a pub.  
  
He frowned.  
  
If this were an ambush, it was a poorly staged one.  
  
He entered the establishment, looking around absently. The tug was satiated for now but it still lingered. This was where it wanted him to be.  
  
Considering the limited crowd this early at night, the pubkeeper easily turned his attention to Alfred. "Yer new here, aren't ye?" He said, his accent a thick one Alfred had never heard before. It fit him, somehow. "Take a seat, I'll getchu a drink. What's yer poison."  
  
Alfred sat at the bar. "I don't drink." He said quietly.  
  
The man laughed, "E'eryone  _drinks_ , lad, but if yer gonna be that way, then how 'bout some food? Yew drink milk or water, eh?"  
  
"I suppose I will eat then." He said. Food sounded like a good idea before the trip home, even if he didn't really need it.  
  
"Good lad! Take a seat at one o' the tables and I'll send round someone to take yer order."  
  
Alfred did as he was bid, slouching into a corner seat. He had enough pocket change to get by through one small meal, he fathomed. While he didn't deal in human currency, he knew _everyone_ dealt in gold.  
  
As a dragon, he'd found himself exceptionally good at finding  _that_.  
  
He felt the presence of a server approaching him, the crisp, pub uniform clear in the corner of his eye. He paid little mind until the person was nearly at his side.  
  
And he felt a strange, sudden jerk in his chest from the spell.  
  
Startled, he looked up.  
  
A beat of silence passed between the two of them as emerald green eyes widened slightly.  
  
That face.  
  
It was unmistakably Arthur's.


	36. My Heart

" _Come find me._ " He had said.  
  
The kiss. The spell.  
  
So  _that's_  what it had all meant.  
  
It felt so surreal staring up at that oh-so-familiar face. His eyes traveled down his neck, hesitating at the sight of folded wings behind his back.  
  
They were fluffy and white.  
  
They looked like the ones from the tattoo.  
  
His entire body was overcome by emotion that had long since laid dormant. He wanted to cry. He wanted to launch himself forward and embrace him. It was Arthur. It was really, truly, actually  _Arthur_.  
  
He could sense, however faintly, their bond.  
  
He could  _also_  sense Arthur's hesitation.  
  
He restrained himself, but it was difficult.  
  
Arthur's wings twitched awkwardly as whatever was on his mind had been pushed aside. He looked entirely distracted by something and Alfred felt a blossoming of hope for it. The sight of Alfred had seemed to shake him-- that had to mean  _something_.  
  
"So, ah... order?" Arthur asked, raising his pen to pad as a gesture.  
  
That beautiful voice.  
  
Oh, the half-incubus  _had_  charmed him but that was nothing compared to hearing Arthur speak again after three hundred long, miserable years. Alfred could have nearly swooned.  
  
But he needed to find his words.  
  
"I- um..." He fumbled, feeling like the youth he had been when he was first deemed an apprentice so very many years ago. "Er-- whatever. Just. Whatever. Meat or something." He said, stammering.  
  
Arthur looked just as intrigued by his reaction as Alfred had been with his. He could only watch in fascination as a pearly tooth lightly worried at the rose of his lip.  
  
How he longed to kiss him.  
  
"Alright, so... a steak?" Arthur suggested.  
  
"If you think that best." Alfred told him. "Just so long as you aren't the cook too."  
  
A beat of silence dropped like a weight and he straightened slightly as he realized what he had just said.  
  
This white-winged Arthur's lips were parted in surprise, eyes wide.  
  
They had never met before and that much was clear. Short of being a seer, there was no way he could have known that about this Arthur. It was even possible that such traits hadn't carried over onto this reincarnation.  
  
Because that's what he was, wasn't he? Arthur reborn. His age was young--so  _very_  young. No more than twenty years, certainly. How had Alfred not known of him sooner? Why had the spell only activated itself now?  
  
It mattered not. This was the here and now.  
  
Arthur's adorable brow furrowed in confusion. "How did you--," and then he stopped, shaking his head. "No. No this is too  _bloody_  strange." He was talking to himself and he seemed to realize that, flushing slightly. "Er, I'll go put this order in and,  _no_ ," he gritted out, looked irritated, "I am  _not_ the cook. Gods, you'd think I had murdered someone or something." A roll of eyes as he turned on his heel and stormed towards the kitchen, fluffy wings smoothly following him with an ethereal grace.  
  
Sitting there alone, Alfred felt a sense of calm as a true smile broke out on his face.  
  
Arthur.  
  
 _His Arthur_.  
  
He was right. He really wouldn't die so easily, would he?  
  
  
  
  
Alfred was no longer a scared child-- an  _apprentice_.  
  
This time would be different.  
  
  
  
No matter the cost, he  _would_  protect him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Final Notes [cross-posted and edited from Dreamwidth]:
> 
> Thanks to everyone for following this story to its end!
> 
> I apologize to anyone who had trouble with the ending. I know the description of Arthur's pain and suffering might have been a bit vivid, but I really wanted to portray how utterly devastating that was to Alfred. I would hesitate to consider it a true character death as, as you saw, he didn't really die in the end. There was no way around it if I wanted to get to the conclusion I desired, however. It was all calculated and necessary. Apologies again for anyone this bothered!
> 
> You might be wondering why I posted it all at once.
> 
> Honestly? It's because it has been made very clear to me that every single little bite of this left you on a tease and, while that's deliciously entertaining, I didn't want to do it with such a heartbreaking group of parts. I wanted it all to flow together-- the pain and anguish resolving itself and leaving you, instead, with something happy.
> 
> And I truly do feel it's a happy ending.
> 
> I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and, for most of the story I've kept mine to myself, but Arthur's death was not so much a death as it was a necessary rebirth. It was a hard reset. And he really, desperately needed that in a way I would have trouble explaining at this point.
> 
> It's been a fun couple of months. I never imagined it would be such a long project when I started it. I thought, "Hey, this looks like a fun excuse to write smut!" and then all the plot came barreling in and decided to make itself at home.
> 
> For those interested, the entire story was originally posted [here](http://hetalia-kink.dreamwidth.org/82590.html?thread=509212318#cmt509212318).
> 
> Additionally, I will also be writing more for this series which I talk about [here](http://snowyfoxmoved.tumblr.com/post/83153633940/wai-t-what-is-this-down-the-rabbit-hole-side-story). If you have something you wanted to see in this story, but it never happened, leave a comment here. I can't do everything, but I promise to indulge a good deal of it since, honestly, I want to see all of that stuff happen too.
> 
> Here is [an image I made for Arthur's final scene](http://snowyfoxmoved.tumblr.com/post/82887289021/its-probably-finally-safe-to-share-this-so), for those interested. And there's [some concept art here](http://snowyfoxmoved.tumblr.com/post/82851016027/down-the-rabbit-hole-art) too.
> 
>  
> 
> I know at least one person will say, "What happens next!?"
> 
> Well...
> 
>  
> 
> It would spoil the sequel if I told you, now wouldn't it?


End file.
